There's a continuum of instruments from purely musical instruments (the most common) to purely visual instruments (e.g. liquid light shows). Along that continuum, an instrument that is purely musical can be enhanced with visuals that directly reflect and support some recognizable aspect of the music. It's not unusual to see a small number of audio frequency bands controlling visuals, but those give limited control to the person playing the musical instrument. On the other hand, if you use the actual MIDI data of the music (assuming we're in MIDI land), pitch and channel can be used in much more interesting ways, providing more detailed control to the instrument and player. I find Dan Tepfer's work inspirational in thinking about how visuals can be used in this way. In his presentations, he gradually introduces people to musical concepts and then interesting visualizations of them. Here's a point in a recent video where you can see what he does:
Shortly after that simple example, he shows a handful of other interesting realtime graphical representations of music which are easily understandable by an audience. It's the realtime aspect of this stuff which particularly attracts me, because while only directly playing the music, the performer can see and interact with the resulting visuals by improvising musically.
...Tim...
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- KVRian
- 579 posts since 8 Oct, 2005
The piano (that can play itself) playing intervals with him was the first I've seen anything like that! It's basically a real-time play back algorithm that stays in key, plays back an interval (or whatever) below, and maybe 1/8th beat after him, while he plays or improvises live.
Of course the music could be written out and played by a 2nd pianist on a 2nd piano. But not if improvised. He basically developed a computer player that can improvise with him using intervals. Pretty cool.
Something similar musician's use live is a tape delay effect. The delay repeats what the musician plays certain beats later. The musician has to stay in key as the delay playback has no way to change it's notes. Dan's computer can change notes and stay in key while he improvises.
Of course the music could be written out and played by a 2nd pianist on a 2nd piano. But not if improvised. He basically developed a computer player that can improvise with him using intervals. Pretty cool.
Something similar musician's use live is a tape delay effect. The delay repeats what the musician plays certain beats later. The musician has to stay in key as the delay playback has no way to change it's notes. Dan's computer can change notes and stay in key while he improvises.
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- KVRAF
- 9544 posts since 6 Jan, 2017 from Outer Space
Isn’t a typical light show already an “orchestral” approach to that concept? There are also instruments controlled by light, like the laser harp…