Fleischinger

Music Today: Light Shows

Oct 27 2009


Just as narratives gain new forms of media as technology progresses, musicians encounter more options for their concerts. Venues, props, themes and above all stage lights prove to be important decisions while planning an event. Routinely light shows have been a focal point for many artists, whose addition of dramatic visuals to their music can at times be overwhelming. LCD fixtures, blinding lights, projectors, absurd rigs, strobes and colors all become finely synchronized to both the tempo and feeling of the actual music as well as the story being told.

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Fleischinger's Children

Oct 27 2009

Fleischinger's grand experiments in color and music correlated seem to have for the most part been relegated to the wayside in animation in modern days. Based on this idea, it is easy to conclude that his experiment has failed, and perhaps it has in some sense, but at the same time, there are many modern conventions that it is easy to see how they have been derived from his work.

Visualizations are a common component of modern media players, such as Zoom, Windows Media Player, the built-in media player on the PSP system, etc. These computer algorithms convert music (or other sounds) into a visual representation. Notably, sound recording equipment often corresponds sound to a line diagram--trying to represent sound waves in a visual format for technical use.
It isn't a new idea to represent music visually--anyone who knows how to read music in any form understands that. Every type of musical marking is an attempt to translate sound into a visual format. For example, note that the marking for crescendo/decrescendo expands or contracts as the sound is supposed to get bigger or smaller.

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