[1/10/2020] Context of Practice 3 Initial Research
During the summer, we were tasked to develop a research presentation to present to our peers. As I was interested in music and visual animation from last years' COP module, I decided to retackle that topic in a different angle. Instead of looking at AMVs, I wanted to understand the synthesis of music and visual on an in-depth level.
Having a general direction for what I want to research upon, I then developed a statement of intent for this project. The statement of intent covers a general basis of what I will be researching upon in the written piece, alongside with a rationale stating my intentions for researching on the chosen topic.
[9/10/2020] Statement of Intent
Completing my statement of intent, I have narrowed down and pinpointed specific areas that I have decided to investigate upon from my initial research phrase. In my essay, I will research into visual aspects such as colour, shape and texture and understand how sound is visualised and associated with different notes. How that changes according to the pitch or frequency. I will also look into different music genres and how that will affect the visuals. The goal is to experiment with music and visual elements to find an equilibrium between the two that will ultimately enhance visual and auditory experiences to the audience. And how I will be able to incorporate narrative into it.
[21/10/2020] First Tutorial Session
During this week, we had to complete our introduction segment of our essay for our first tutorial with our assigned tutors.
Feedback:
- Fix tenses
- Implement in-text citations for referencing to used sources
- Tie sources into my introduction [how I am going to use my primary and secondary sources to help achieve my practical goal]
- Try to look at opposing sources to create unbiased viewpoints
- Contact Samantha Moore
- Create a Gantt Chart for better planning
- Place 'Page of Context' in Appendix instead of front of essay
- Try to include diversity in research [practitioners] to see if there are correlations in gender?
[29/10/2020] Gantt Chart
- Gantt chart demonstrates a rough timeline for this module [COP3/LAUAN601]
- I gave myself a week for each research session, alongside that my practical will be experimental shorts, I will develop my practical in conjunction with my research as a response to each segment.
- The ideal plan is to finish my work by November 25 to give myself leeway to edit and refine my work if necessary before the due date of December 10
[30/10/2020] Getting in Contact [Samantha Moore & Music Engineer Undergraduate]
Conducting some primary research, I got in contact with two sources. I have a friend who is an Undergraduate Music Engineer student from Birmingham City University. Knowing that he has symptoms of Synesthesia, I interviewed him to see how he visualises colour in his perspective.
- Lower pitch // Lower end notes // Flat = Darker hue [Blueish- Purple]
- Higher pitch // High end notes // Sharp = Lighter hue [Brownish]
- The lower the flat, the more purple the hue is; whereas the higher the flat, the hue will be progressively blue
- Green and Red are not colours that are not visible
- Colour hue goes from Brown to Orange to Yellow
- Future plan: Get Archie to fill out a colour graph of one Octave
Samantha Moore was suggested to me by Mat during our 1-2-1 tutorial. I sent an email today to try to get in contact with her to inquire her about Synesthesia and her experience with it.
I have prepared some potential questions that would be useful for my essay and practical progression.
1) How did you find out you were a Synesthete?
2) How is your experience with music in general? Does listening to music necessarily intensify the visuals or are they base off of the loudest/apparent sound? [does different layers affect it?]
3) Have you listened to different types of music? If so, do different genres and languages effect the visual depictions? [genre like Pop, Rap, Lofi etc. // Languages? // Instrumental?]
4) Does all sound and word necessary have a specific shape, form, colour and or texture?
5) After watching your short film "Eye Full of Sound", you illustrate visual imagery and patterns of how sound is visualised from your perspective. Do those visual depictions change over time [age?] Are they dependant on your emotions?
6) If you listen to a piece of music, do those visuals necessarily tell a narrative along with the song? [Do they necessarily go with the music or no?]
[2/11/2020] Second Tutorial Session
After completing majority of the research for my essay, I sent my second draft in for review for the second 1-2-1 tutorial session.
Feedback: - Polish introduction ['Aim to analyse a variety/variables instead of 'successfully']
- Format all the completed research into finalised sentences/paragraphs
- Since Samantha hasn't replied yet, try to find another primary source
- Triangulate sources
- Draw conclusions based on research + apply to practice
- Make a start on practical
- Use range of sources [introduction]
Now my aim is to finish formatting and finalising all the writing aspect of the essay for the 12th of November as that will be the draft hand-in date where I will have to have completed at least half the essay. I will utilise this weekend to finish that aspect so I can start my practical next week.
[6/11/2020] Potential Primary Source
As suggested during the second tutorial session, I reached out to see if anyone that I know that studies music would know anyone that has Synesthesia. As I understood that people that has perfect pitch are also Synesthetes.
I was able to get ahold of a student who studies in Royal College of Music in London and hopefully will be able to conduct an interview with her soon this week.
After attempting to reach out to Eyra as my back-up primary source, she responded not long after. During our conversation, I got a significant amount of insight about synesthesia which helped a lot as some information I wasn't able to gather through secondary research.
Erya learnt about her condition in secondary school during a neurological differences in school, specifically the autistic spectrum. Synesthesia experiences were brought up and she then realised that she was one that related to those experiences. It did not occur to her that anyone though differently, she assumed everyone saw colours and felt temperatures with sound.
To conclude, the main things I've learned about Synesthesia after our exchange:
- Eyra has Chromesthesia [Sound evoking colours, shapes and movements], Misophonia [Sound triggering certain emotions or physiological responses] and Auditory-Tactile Synesthetisa [Sound affecting ones' tactile sensation, tingling, localised pressure/tension]
- Each and everyone's perception of colour via sound is personal and unique [Chromesthesia]
- There are factors that may change the colour perception of certain things and things that will stay definite. As for Eyra, her colour system of notes stay definite; how she associate notes to colour. However factors such as timbre (particular tones that distinguishes a sound/compound of sounds), pitch (how high/low a certain note is), where the music is placed harmonically, and her emotions and how sensitive her hearing is on that day affects the visualisations a lot
- Eyra's visuals can be dependent on different factors of music. Sometimes, her visual corresponds best with timbre, sometimes it's overtones, sometimes the key and sometimes the individual pitches
- Middle C is always Forest Green, the lower the flat of C is, the darker it is, the higher it is, the more lurid it is
- If that note is played on violin, it's Blueish but retaining that hint of Forest Green
- On a clarinet, it's Brown, Silver and Green
- Depending on Eyra's hearing, if it's more sensitive, the more on the lurid side colours will be, and duller colours will be more prominent if normal
- If an instrument has strong overtones/undertones [higher/lower frequency of a note] those play a factor to the colours/patterns visualise
- Eyra's overtone system; purples, reds, oranges and copper-gold
- The visuals that she depicts in her work are a series of intricate, intense and colourful still portrayals of various shapes, lines and patterns. Usually swirls and circles but also various lines that range in type; wiggly and zagged, length, thickness, texture, all small visualisations compounded into a still illustration.
[12/11/2020] 1st Draft Submission
After cleaning up my notes and restructuring them to paragraphs and sentences, organise my appendices and bibliography alongside the required format and handed the draft in for submission. Unfortunately I was too focussed on the writing aspect of the essay and did not progress for practical. I will be doing that next week to hopefully complete at least 70% of my experimental shorts and reflect upon it within the essay.
Interview Results [Table]
After the interview with Eyra and Archie, I asked them to fill in a colour chord graph which visually illustrates their interpretation of colour in relation to music. In addition, to them, I found out that another one of my friends also experience synesthesia and asked her to fill in the table too.
As I develop my practical, the first step was to develop my own colour correlation chart in relation to an octave.
Self Developed Colour Table in Accordance to an Octave
Through developing this graph, I have learnt several things...
- As I do not experience synesthesia, the colour relations are just self correlations dependant on mood of myself and the sound, and are not consistent or permanent
- Notes that are not sharps/flats are duller in comparison and it gets progressively lurid as it goes from C to B
- The feeling that I get from playing sharps/flats in an octave, the minors, give off an eerie tone, therefore I associate them with a theme of 'haunting' colours; such as Maroon, Lavender and Grey
Colour Table [Yvette, Eyra and Jason]
Comparing the two interviewees who are synesthetes, here's what I found:
- Comparing Yvette and Eyra's colour chart, it is evident that they both experience synesthesia differently even though they have the same type, Chomresthesia
- Whilst Eyra's chart just depicts the C note on an octave scale of different instruments, Yvette's chart illustrates a whole octave. Comparing how they interpret the C note, Eyra's interpretation is forest green whilst Yvette's is yellow. As Eyra has perfect pitch, she is able to precisely pinpoint the specific notes of any sound; alongside with synesthesia, her visualisation of C changes depending on how high or low the C note is. The lower it is the darker it gets and the higher it is the more lurid the colour gets.
- Besides solid colours, Yvette experiences a combination. Evident from her visualisation of the D note, she sees it as an aura with blue being the base colour with a seafood mint radiating around it. As for her G sharp, a teal base with gold marbling within it is visualised, this is different as it is a specific pattern unlike other solid colours.
- As Eyra's chart is only of the note of C in various octaves, it is apparent that her perception is very different from Yvette's. As Yvette visualises in solid colours and in some cases a combination of colours and a motif, Eyra's colour chart is dependant on the pitch of the sound and instrument.
- All in all this is evident that synesthetes have their own experience and neurological correlations that produces these outcomes
Strong Correlation [Archie]
Interviewing Archie, it is stated that he does not experience synesthesia and instead just has strong correlations between numbers and letters with colours. In synesthesia, this type would be under grapheme colour synesthesia.
Conclusion
All in all, I learnt the difference between strong self correlation and synesthesia. Synesthesia is an experience where it comes naturally and involuntarily, like a sixth sense, however that is different from strong correlations as strong correlations is not all natural and does depend on at least some thought. This is evident with the examples as I interviewed Eyra and Yvette who were synesthetes, Eyra particularly said in the interview how her colour to music correlation is always constant and can only be effected by factors such as her sensitivity to hearing and this case different instruments. Where as in Archie's example, during the interview he had some trouble listing and correlating some colours to numbers/letters as his correlations are from how he relates those two elements together however it does not come naturally. I can also elaborate upon this as I also had to give some thought to it when I was creating my own octave scale, thinking of a system and how sharps and flats correlate to haunting and eerie sound, and how normal notes are more mellow and natural.
[19/11/2020] Visual Board Development
Developing my practical of my experimental piece, I started to create visual boards of songs that I listen to.
Separating to instrumental and lyrical, here's what I have developed.
TINFOIL - Linkin Park [Instrumental // Visual Board]
- This progressive instrumental piece features elements of drums, piano and an 'echo' like sound that drowns the clarity of the instruments
- Through listening to this piece, the patterns/stokes that I visualised were a series of faint 'sonar' like depictions alongside some rough textured strokes.
- Moreover the piece gave me a strong visualisation of a dark tunnel which travels towards the light as the piece progresses
- Strong sense of colour also came into mind, dull colours of maroon, magenta, a mixture of the aforementioned alongside some greys and beige
I Luv U - SQUAR - Cytus [EDM Instrumental // Visual Board]
- This instrumental has various musical elements such as brass, strings and piano, mashed with electronic elements giving it a unique combination
- This piece presents a grand feeling with the classical instruments but quickly transitions to a mythical and adrenaline rush like feel once the electronic elements unite with the instruments
- The visuals I connect with listening to this piece are a series of patterns which slightly resembles leaves, fur and animal prints, mainly dense series of shapes, some geometrical patterns which somewhat resemble rhythm game bars and music scores, and organic flows of lines
- The textures are mainly a series of psychedelic swirls and patterns along with checkers patterns as the instrumental's mythic aspect brings correlation to Alice and the Wonderland
- The colours that I tie this piece with are a series of bright and vibrant colours
G.O.A.T - Polyphia [String + Bass Instrumental // Visual Board]
- This instrumental piece features mainly guitars and drums. The combination of the two make a simple yet unique piece that gives off this juxtaposition of a freezing hell sort of environment
- The lines/strokes that I visualised are a series of patterns that feature both organic symbolic motifs and some geometrical ones too; a series of smokey light patterns and some being a combination of swirls and glyph like symbols
- Some textures that I envision are coarse textures such as sand and rice, alongside with densely packed visual textures such as scales and binary and some ice elements
- The colours of this piece range from vibrant hot pinks and oranges to colours such as olive and peacock and a series of dull greys, blues and greens.
Koiwazurai - Aimer [J-Pop // Visual Board]
- This song by the Japanese artist Aimer gives off a romantic and upbeat feeling
- As I do not understand Japanese, my interpretation of the song are purely based off of the mood, tone and rhythm of the song and not the lyrics.
- After some research into the lyrics, this song is about lovesickness, as the name of the song translates to that verbatim and is about the struggles of feeling love sick and the pain and emotional aspects that strongly affects the 'victim'; a direct contrast to my initial interpretation of the song
Moon River - Aimer [Song // Visual Board]
- This other song by aimer is a cover of the infamous 'Moon River'
- As I understand the lyrics, this song makes me visualise a calm and cooler atmosphere and environment. Creating a subconscious relationship between what I visualise and the name of the song, Moon River.
- A short narrative or scenario that I strongly envision is a man on a wooden boat fishing in the starry night whilst star twinkle bright and shooting stars pass by in the dreamy and tranquil night
Glassy Sky - AmaLee - Tokyo Ghoul [Song // Visual Board]
- This song is a song for an Anime series Tokyo Ghoul.
- This original sound track has a really ethereal sense to it, and in the visual board, a lot of post-apocalyptic images and desolate landscape are noted as listening to this piece creates a narrative for me
- In a post-apocalyptic world where majority of man kind has been wiped out, only few have the will power to try to save the planet. There is a tower that reaches beyond the clouds breaking a transparent barrier surrounding Earth after the apocalypse, whoever reaches the top will be able to destroy this tower in the cost of their life, removing the barrier encasing the Earth and allowing Earth to heal from this apocalyptic state.
Conclusion [Instrumental vs Song]
- I found that instrumentals allow me to envision more visual aspects, lines/stroke, textures and colour and less on the narrative elements whereas songs allow me to fully indulge in the more clear and complete visual sequences and narrative.
- Instrumental music is more challenging in terms of implementing narrative aspects as it is solely visual focus, where that narrative foundation is already built for me with songs.
- I learnt that language in this case doesn't necessarily become a hinderance however it enables another aspect of self implementation and interpretation evident with the 'Koiwazurai' visual board example.
[27/11/2020] Visual Short Development
After developing the visual boards, I wanted to choose one visual board and further develop upon it to create a visual short. In the end I chose Aimer's cover of Moon River as I had consistent visual imagery and have made strong correlations between the visual elements and the song itself. Using the visual board to guide me, I created this painting/background for the animation short.
Practical Development [Initial Background]
- As I stated in my visual board development stage, the song reminds me of a strong visual element of a tranquil and dreamy setting, with a wooden boat and a man fishing upon the still water.
- Heavily inspired by the DreamWorks logo and the title of the song, this is how I would visually depict the song Moon River in context of animation.
- I also overlay a crayon texture on top of the piece to give it a softer and dreamy tone
Practical Development [Background Texture Experiment]
- I painted the boat and the fisherman both with a brush that gives off a similar texture to the crayon texture overlay
- I tried removing the overlay texture to see how it would look and in the end decided that keeping it would be better as it suits the visual portrayal of the theme better
Practical Development [Adding Moon, Ripple and Stars]
- Using the same brush that I used for the boat and fisherman, I painted the Moon to keep the visual aspect consistent
- I changed the colour of the overlay crayon texture from the original baby blue to monotone to avoid the clash between the texture colour and the background
- I animated the ripple part for the fishing rod, in addition to that, it was animated in the time of 4 frames per a quarter of a second which syncs with the ticking beat of the clock of the song.
- I also added three sets of stars. The smallest stars are static and are constant illuminating, whereas the medium and large stars illuminate at different times. Medium stars having the same time signature as the ripple animation and the large stars have a half second sequence longer than the medium stars.
Practical Development [Darker Filter and Moving Clouds]
- After getting some suggestion, I decided to work on the clouds and make them move instead of leaving them static in the background just to make it more visually interesting
- The clouds move to their static position by the end of the song, and the speed of the cloud varies depending on the size
Practical Development [Shooting Stars]
- Finally, I added in the last part of the animated short which are the shooting stars. As I synced the stars and ripples already with the rhythm of the song, I decided the shooting stars will sync to the lyrics
- Each set of shooting stars will sync up with the lyrics of the song, starting from each set of lyrics and ending disappearing into the background after the same set of lyrics are done
[28/11/2020] Visual Short
- This is the final outcome of the visual short
- From visual board developed into a looping short that has various visual elements that subtly reflect the theme that I envisioned and the timing of the song
- The result of this practical piece captures the essence of my developed visual board. As it has elements of the shooting star, fisherman in a boat and a dreamy and tranquil vibe visually. In combination with the song, the visual is able to enhance the visual and auditory aspect simultaneously, allowing the viewers to be encapsulated in the song
[3/12/2020] Practical Presentation
Finishing my practical, I have complied them into a short presentation showing and demonstrating my visual boards and my final visual short developed from one of the chosen visual boards.
