Projects

This paper introduces a new design idiom for augmenting sheet music through chordal glyphs. Harmonic concepts, weighted by saliency and categorized by data type, are mapped to visual channels ranked by discriminability. Bar-line-like glyphs directly encode harmonic annotations within the musical staff.

Presented July 20th, 2021, as a poster at the MEC'21 Music Encoding Conference.

Excerpt from Beethoven’s ‘32 Variations on an Original Theme in C minor’, WoO 080. Proof-of-Concept chordal glyphs represent various harmonic attributes.

Using the very strong signal of visual position (vertical displacement) to encode a chord's harmonic function (predominant-dominant-tonic) in a piece. A short essay published in the recently released DSxD Anthology.

Leveraging Preattentive Shape Alongside the 12 Families of Key/Chord Color

Experiments utilizing shape alongside color for representing a chord's modal brightness (Major vs. Minor). Minor chords use sharp edges with black angular triangles alongside darker colors, major chords use smooth edges with white rounded squares and lighter colors. Scale degrees one through seven are shown by the number of pips on each chordal glyph.
The shapes used are based upon a custom three-dimensional representation of preattentive space (sharp vs. smooth, segmented vs. not segmented, compact vs. open)

More coming soon.

12-Color Categorical Palettes

Maximize visual discernibility of colors by using color values that are strongly associated with familiar color names.

More coming soon.


Diagram of a musical Circle of Fifths that resembles a flower with 12 petals. Around the edge of the flower are the 12 musical keys used in Western Art Music, beginning with Bb in the 12:00 position, proceeding clockwise in ascending fifths (F at 1:00, C at 2:00, G at 3:00, etc.). Colors of the petals, and their names, likewise cycle through 12 steps of color space, from Orange at 12:00 for Bb, to Brown, Red, Pink, Lilac, Purple, Blue, Pale Blue, Teal, Green, Olive, and finally Yellow.

Circle of Fifths diagram aligned with a circular color space, where each key uses a hue that matches 12 of the most basic color names in English. Specific hues maximize visual discernibility.

48-Color Categorical Palettes

Leveraging Color Names and Dark-to-Light Variation for larger palettes.

More coming soon.


48 Categorical Colors, clustered within 12 Color Family Names, arranged by hue and dark-to-light values. Selected colors maximize intra-family and inter-family distances in terms of Delta E color differences in C

Parameterized Alphabetic Characters as Chordal Glyphs, using Solfege

Experiments affixing a specific character to each scale degree for chordal glyphs. Letters are the first letter of each solfege syllable using a movable do solfege and do based minor. Scale degrees can be raised or lowered. Suspensions, additions, alterations to the fifth degree of each chord, and other characteristics are uniformly encoded.

More coming soon.