Outcome

Composition

~A Kirigami representation of music

 ~Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso — Saint-Saëns  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8QFHrPSYTA

Narrative:

I decided to make a kirigami representation of music. Paper, being very easy to manipulate to appropriate and relevant forms, was my medium. I wanted to show the interactivity between instruments and parts in a musical score while keeping the unique individual properties visible. I took recordings of the individual parts and fed them through an audio mood detector to translate them into compressed color schemes. Then I cut out the form of the parts' soundwaves to create a section of paper for each instrument. From there, I created the kirigami multidimensional cross.

Reflection:

Originally, I wanted to invent a new way of writing score of the parts, which would be creating color gradients based on the half steps between notes and chords. Then there would be a final section of paper that combined these color gradients to show the interactivity between the parts. However, this was tremendously difficult so I had to fallback to color interpretations of specific parts. Reflecting, I think it's incredible how people can reinvent ways to view not only music, but the interactions between different notes. It's misleading when we see single waveforms to represent songs because there's so much happening underneath that can't be seen.