
What Musical Notes Can Look Like - tintinnabula
http://nautil.us/blog/this-is-what-musical-notes-actually-look-like
======
JoeDaDude
So it sounds like these are effectively the same thing as Chladni Patterns [1]
using a liquid surface. It reminds of composer Stuart Mitchell [2] who
believed he saw Chladni patterns carved into the Rosslyn Cathedral in
Scotland. These he interpreted as a guide to a musical score, which Mitchell
then recorded as the "Rosslyn Motet" [3].

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Chladni#Chladni_figures](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Chladni#Chladni_figures)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Mitchell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Mitchell)

[3] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cy2Dg-
ncWoY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cy2Dg-ncWoY)

~~~
chubot
Yes, thank you!

Here are some other related links. It looks like their patterns are just a
little noisier due to the medium of water, but you see the same kind of
symmetry.

[http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2013/06/the-visual-patterns-
of...](http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2013/06/the-visual-patterns-of-audio-
frequencies-seen-through-vibrating-sand/)

[http://thekidshouldseethis.com/post/20902918854](http://thekidshouldseethis.com/post/20902918854)
\-- nice video

[http://www.cymatics.co.uk/](http://www.cymatics.co.uk/)

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bweitzman
Like the article (thankfully) mentions, the photographs really do have nothing
to with the notes themselves. Intervals and chords have characters, individual
notes do not.

~~~
sevensor
Indeed, this experiment says as much about the shape and size of the vessel
that holds the liquid as it does about the notes. It's not true that you'd get
the same result if you repeated it at home, unless your apparatus was built
exactly the same.

Also, D minor is the saddest of all keys.

~~~
S_A_P
Spinal Tap?

[https://vimeo.com/92699399](https://vimeo.com/92699399)

~~~
sevensor
Of course :)

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sporkologist
They look like a representation of amplitude vs. time on a graph, if they look
like anything. The art presented is very nice, but it's an artist's
interpretation. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

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phlakaton
I found that to be a fun article, and it could be a starting point for
creative exploration, but I think any suggestion that these images relate to
our actual psychoacoustic perception of notes and music is wholly
unsubstantiated.

I do perceive differences in the character of music played in different
"keys", but 1) I ascribe these to aspects of timbre, dissonance, tuning, and
performance practice rather than fundamental aspects of the notes themselves,
2) there's very little scientific evidence that I'm aware of that these
differences correspond to psychological moods.

Nonetheless, there's a significant philosophical tradition going back to at
least Plato that there is some connection between tonal systems and
psychology. See
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctrine_of_the_affections](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doctrine_of_the_affections)
and Plato's Republic for a couple of starting points.

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agox
According to the article, "If you were to repeat this experiment, you would
get the same designs."

The initial conditions of the experiment are so susceptible to minor
variations, I strongly doubt the author's assertion.

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zhemao
As mentioned in one of the comments, D-E-F is a triad, not a tritone.

A tritone is an interval of three whole tones (i.e. an augmented fourth). For
instance, C and F# form a tritone.

~~~
phlakaton
Indeed, but not only is it not a tritone, it is (to my knowledge) not
"diabolus in musica" either (that's also the tritone). The author noted the
original error, but then corrected it incorrectly. :-(

~~~
Ericson2314
Ya beat me to it. :)

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brador
There must be a better way of writing music down. Out of interest I Googled
"alternative music notation" and every alternative is the same lines with dots
BS that translates poorly to computer and is difficult for beginners to read.

Why has there never existed an alternative musical notation system thats
truely different?

Is horizontal lines and abstract squiggles with relative positions really the
best we have?

~~~
huehehue
There are a few alternatives, though most are instrument-specific.

For piano, there's Klavarskribo. If you've ever played Guitar Hero/Rockband,
it's a bit like that:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klavarskribo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klavarskribo)

For many fretted stringed instruments, there's tablature. One line per string,
and instead of abstract squiggles you get numbers that represent fret
positions. They stack easily for chords, and there's intuitive notation for
picking styles and such. E.g. sliding from the second to the fifth fret on the
A string would look like:

    
    
      E |----------
      B |----------
      G |----------
      D |----------
      A |---2/5----
      E |----------
    

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tablature](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tablature)

I see your point about a _truly_ different system but, as music is basically
sound through time, I'm not sure how else it could be notated if not linearly.

~~~
soundwave106
Most of the alternatives in use I can think come in genres where improvisation
is far more important than playing exactly, and as such only a reduced feature
set is needed. Examples include the above mentioned tablature, solfege
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solf%C3%A8ge](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solf%C3%A8ge)),
Roman numeral notation
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_numeral_analysis](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_numeral_analysis)),
chord charts
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chord_chart](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chord_chart)),
or lead sheets
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_sheet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_sheet)).
Full notation in the pop and jazz genres are rare.

For Western classical, honestly, considering the information included in
standard notation -- rhythmic complexity, phrasings, special symbols for
various afflictions, etc. -- it would be really hard to replicate this in a
system that's both easy for humans and computers to read. (Think if musicians
had to use something like the piano roll found in most DAWs...)

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eggy
In keeping with the religious interpretations of the article, G - Demon, C# -
Tree in Eden, I don't see F as the underbelly of the frog, but more a very
Blakean image of Two Eagles on either side of Christ holding the Chalice with
a wee spider hanging the bottom above the Sun in Christ's lap!

More so, I see G as a Teletubby rather than a Demon ;)

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lisper
No, this is not what musical notes actually look like. At the risk of stating
the painfully obvious, musical notes are sounds, not images. They don't look
like anything. The images in the article are what you get if you render the
information in a sound to an image in a particular way. If you render that
information in a different way, you'll get a different image.

~~~
botfly
Isn't that "what things look like"? Like what you see when you see a tree
isn't actually a tree but the interpretation of light waves hitting your eye.
It's a rendering of the light in a particular way and we somewhat casually
call this "what a tree looks like". Often when we talk about the projection of
a thing into some visual form we us this kinda casual language. I think to
your point, any one of those methods of rendering the information into visual
form has equal claim to "what the notes look like"

~~~
lisper
Yes, that's true, but in the case of macroscopic physical objects like trees
there is a "natural" rendering designed by evolution that is reasonably called
what the thing "actually" looks like. In the case of sounds, there is no such
a natural rendering. Turning sound into images necessarily involves some
design, and so there's no basis for calling any particular rendering the
"actual" appearance of a sound.

~~~
botfly
So the problem in this view is the primacy of one particular projection
asserted by the word "actually"? Fair enough.

~~~
lisper
Yes, exactly. If the headline had been, "A neat way to turn sounds into pretty
pictures" I would have had no problem with it.

~~~
burkaman
But the current headline is "What Musical Notes Can Look Like", emphasis on
the "Can". Your suggestion is basically just a condescending way to rephrase
that.

~~~
lisper
The headline has been changed. When I posted my original comment, the headline
was the original headline: "This Is What Musical Notes Actually Look Like"

