New Sister Site: EagerEars.org
Music and visualization are two things that fascinate me. I always felt that they had something in common, and I recently figured out what it was: structure. That may not be the correct musical term, but it should be clear what I mean nonetheless: the rhythmic structure of music, with its repeated patterns and variations, is what makes music. And that is also what makes abstract images interesting to look at, and what we look for in visualization. So I decided to start another website for my musings on music: EagerEars.
I really only just started with this, and I'm only dabbling in music and music theory. Two months ago, I got a USB keyboard together with the new GarageBand (part of Apple's iLife), which now includes piano lessons. While I'm making some progress playing, I'm also reading up on music theory, which is fascinating – but also confusing.
The structure is what ties it all together. I can sometimes literally see the structure of the music I am listening to, and I am starting to get interested in sonification. I recently saw some great examples of using sonification that really made sense at ASU (as opposed to some I saw some time ago, that I felt were completely pointless). Sonification is not visualization for the ears, it follows completely different rules. Understanding those, and maybe drawing some parallels with visualization (but with the right level of caution) is what this new website is be all about.
So head on over and check the place out. Let me know what topics you are interested in, and maybe leave a comment. There's not a lot of stuff there yet, but it's a start.
Posted by Robert Kosara on April 1, 2009.