Piano Notes Visualized

[rowjimmy]

12 Piano notes made visible for the first time

Shannon Novak, a New Zealand-born fine artist, commissioned us to image 12 piano notes as inspiration for a series of 12 musical canvases. We decided to image the notes in video mode because when we observed the 'A1' note we discovered, surprisingly, that the energy envelope changes over time as the string's harmonics mix in the piano's wooden bridge. Instead of the envelope being fairly stable, as we had imagined, the harmonics actually cause the CymaGlyphs to be wonderfully dynamic. Our ears can easily detect the changes in the harmonics and the CymaScope now reveals them--probably a first in acoustic physics.

Check out the page for more info and an interactive deal wherein you can see video of the notes... It's pretty cool.
http://www.cymascope.com/cyma_research/musicology.html





(eta: there's some kooky stuff on other pages on that site. I'm not condoning or promoting any of it.)

[McGrupp]

Very cool. When first seeing those I couldn't help but think of the 'flower of life'



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flower_of_Life