Comments on: The Shape of Song

The Shape of Song

hama7 — Thu, 15 Jul 2004 05:40:45 -0800

The Shape of Song from Turbulence.

By: Gyan

Gyan — Thu, 15 Jul 2004 06:39:00 -0800

Very nice, but [Java] warning please, next time.

By: mookieproof

mookieproof — Thu, 15 Jul 2004 06:58:30 -0800

v. cool!

By: kozad

kozad — Thu, 15 Jul 2004 07:05:18 -0800

Interesting, but the more I look at it, the more confused I get. Shouldn't the visual representations reflect the complexity of the song? Why does Cole Porter's uncharacteristically simple (and country!) song "Don't Fence Me In" then look so visually baroque? One bit of (unintentional?) humor: click on John Cage's most famous composition, 4' 33" (rendered on this site as "422"), and nothing happens.

By: grateful

grateful — Thu, 15 Jul 2004 07:18:25 -0800

Compare ZZTop's "Legs" to "Battle Hymn of the Republic". Whoa!

By: carter

carter — Thu, 15 Jul 2004 07:35:59 -0800

That's nice, thanks!

By: caddis

caddis — Thu, 15 Jul 2004 07:48:35 -0800

Great link! Mozart and Beethoven and other classical composers have complex repeating structures which this tool shows nicely. Some popular music such as by the Beatles also shows quite complex repeats. A music professor of mine in college used to like to compare these structural aspects of composition between the Beatles and classical composers. This tool is a great visualization for that.

By: zpousman

zpousman — Thu, 15 Jul 2004 12:12:05 -0800

The guy who built this is working at IBM research these days. He's working on a larger project, called ReMail, to use arc-diagrams to help people visualize email threads and other work tasks and processes.