I wonder what would happen if you (or someone else) tried to visualize/animate patterns in music that is rarely, if ever, written down using Western notation?
The thing is, a lot of music from other countries and cultures - including music with complex polyrhythms - is learned and taught entirely by ear. That includes various kinds of percussion ensemble music from West African countries (Guinea, Senegal, Mali, Ghana, Nigeria and more), South Indian konnakol (which is vocal percussion but also highly melodic), how the tombak/zarb drum is used in Persian classical music, the massive groupings of percussion instruments in samba schools in Brazil, North Indian tabla drumming in classical performances... and on and on.
All of the examples i mentioned have inherent melodies, and are something different than what we Westerners think of as "rhythm." They're incredibly resistant to the concepts of Western notation, likely because Western notation can only go so far per highly complex polyrhythms and extremely long rhythmic /melodic patterns in many forms of non-Western music. There have been so many attempts at notating Mande percussion ensemble music from Guinea and Mali, yet i don't know of any that successfully captured the music - usually something is very off, whether it's time signatures, an understanding of how the various patterns interact both rhythmically and melodically, etc.
I chose examples of percussion mainly because I've been learning to play non-Western percussion (primarily Middle Eastern and W. African instruments and music) for quite a few years now. I'm not an ethnomus person, and the teachers I've had don't use any form of notation. The music (applies to "melody" instruments as well) is all taught by ear, although some people in the ME have adapted Western notation to Arab classical music over the course of the past few decades.
At any rate, it would be truly fascinating to see results of many different forms of music (which is outside the purview of Western music) in a visual form.
Hi Dom, wondering if you have worked with Cymatics at all? It seems to me you're doing something similar to that, except using rhythm rather than tone as the basis for pattern generation.
Love this Dom. What scale are you using in the 750 polyrhythm? I hear the harmonic series in there and wondered if you'd coded that in or if it is emerging from the notes combining.
I'd love to see animated versions with the sound so I can spot when I'm hearing the different star patterns in there.
It also makes me wonder if there's some fun to be had combining polyrhythms with the harmonograph, so using time as a plotting parameter instead of an axis.
The 750 poly-rhythms one is basically an entry-level Electric Waves of Resistance track: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-zxGYaAp0o
Very interesting!
I wonder what would happen if you (or someone else) tried to visualize/animate patterns in music that is rarely, if ever, written down using Western notation?
The thing is, a lot of music from other countries and cultures - including music with complex polyrhythms - is learned and taught entirely by ear. That includes various kinds of percussion ensemble music from West African countries (Guinea, Senegal, Mali, Ghana, Nigeria and more), South Indian konnakol (which is vocal percussion but also highly melodic), how the tombak/zarb drum is used in Persian classical music, the massive groupings of percussion instruments in samba schools in Brazil, North Indian tabla drumming in classical performances... and on and on.
All of the examples i mentioned have inherent melodies, and are something different than what we Westerners think of as "rhythm." They're incredibly resistant to the concepts of Western notation, likely because Western notation can only go so far per highly complex polyrhythms and extremely long rhythmic /melodic patterns in many forms of non-Western music. There have been so many attempts at notating Mande percussion ensemble music from Guinea and Mali, yet i don't know of any that successfully captured the music - usually something is very off, whether it's time signatures, an understanding of how the various patterns interact both rhythmically and melodically, etc.
I chose examples of percussion mainly because I've been learning to play non-Western percussion (primarily Middle Eastern and W. African instruments and music) for quite a few years now. I'm not an ethnomus person, and the teachers I've had don't use any form of notation. The music (applies to "melody" instruments as well) is all taught by ear, although some people in the ME have adapted Western notation to Arab classical music over the course of the past few decades.
At any rate, it would be truly fascinating to see results of many different forms of music (which is outside the purview of Western music) in a visual form.
Mind blowing!
This is beautiful
Hi Dom, wondering if you have worked with Cymatics at all? It seems to me you're doing something similar to that, except using rhythm rather than tone as the basis for pattern generation.
Love this Dom. What scale are you using in the 750 polyrhythm? I hear the harmonic series in there and wondered if you'd coded that in or if it is emerging from the notes combining.
I'd love to see animated versions with the sound so I can spot when I'm hearing the different star patterns in there.
It also makes me wonder if there's some fun to be had combining polyrhythms with the harmonograph, so using time as a plotting parameter instead of an axis.
Extraordinary images - beautiful to see sound visualised
Great post - I love musical visualisations, and seeing the patterns and shapes emerge like this is always fascinating!