Song Shapes

A couple of days ago I added your http://vispo.com/animisms/nana.htm
(ound pome, ound poem) to http://nznl.com/blog.shtml – because,
although I realised that I may have seen such generated images before,
I actually like these – I like the nebulous quality, the way in which
the blue letters change into blue clouds – and I like the
finnagainian title "ound pomes" and all the variations thereof.

Its not about the repetition, I understand why you should want to
study, but why call this new batch "Song Shapes"? What am I missing?

Geert
(http://nznl.com)



On 30-sep-04, at 13:48, Jim Andrews wrote:

> Song Shapes
> http://vispo.com/nio/SoundShapes.htm
>
> 29 animated song shapes for music in the head.
> you imagine the music.
> click 'next' to move to a new song shape.
>
> i have added this new stuff to the nio (2001) project.
>
> visual poetry.
>
> ja
> http://vispo.com
>
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> A couple of days ago I added your http://vispo.com/animisms/nana.htm
> (ound pome, ound poem) to http://nznl.com/blog.shtml – because,
> although I realised that I may have seen such generated images before,
> I actually like these – I like the nebulous quality, the way in which
> the blue letters change into blue clouds – and I like the
> finnagainian title "ound pomes" and all the variations thereof.
>
> Its not about the repetition, I understand why you should want to
> study, but why call this new batch "Song Shapes"? What am I missing?

Hi Geert,

In its repetition (rhythm), music is a kind of engine/dynamo. There's the
main beat. And then there's the beat of each instrument playing while the
main beat plays. The instruments are hooked to the main beat. Think of the
main beat as the big circle in http://vispo.com/nio/SoundShapes.htm . Each
of the instruments (letters or phonemes) is moved along the big circle, but
each instrument also has its own more or less circular motion (the rhythm of
it you'd hear if it was playing alone). So finally you get a cumulative
thing where there are circles within a larger circle. the 'song shapes' are
generated by moving an animation along the circumference of a big circle.
think of the animation that is moved along the circumference as containing
the instruments (letters or phonemes) which have their own motion were the
big circle not turning.

but the main thing is that music is a kind of engine and the 'song shapes'
show an engine changing cumulatively over time. the 'song shapes' show not
just what is playing at the moment but at any moment the shape is the result
of the history of what has played previously. just like in a song, the 4th
repetition of a riff or hook or whatever sounds different from the first
repetition because the context is different, ie, we have different
expectations about what will follow it and we are more in the groove on the
fourth.

so that's why the things are called 'song shapes'.

also, the animations appear in a piece i did at http://vispo.com/nio . you
can see them in a different context there (click NIO at the top of the
page). there are 16 of those animations. the 'song shapes' explore the
different 'song shapes' traced out by each of the 16 nio animations.

the nio project has several aspects. there's the shockwave interactive audio
piece, the main engine of the nio project. then there is the source code
which is downloadable for director developers. and a couple of essays, one
on poetics of interactive audio for the web, one on technical stuff (this is
now part of the macromedia documentation on audio programming in director),
an interview, some still visual poetry, etc, and now the song shapes.

nio was launched in 2001. it was commissioned by turbulence. the nio
shockwave piece is a little interactive audio/visual sequencer. nice to add
a good new part to that project that takes the project yet further into
visual poetry.

thanks for asking, geert, and for the link to your
http://nznl.com/blog.shtml

ja

another engine: http://www.jr.co.il/gif/engine-a.gif

ja