Abstract
In this research, we developed software that makes
an image from music. We call it music visualization. Our music visualization is based on pitch detection, so it visualizes true musical notes, and this differs from simple tempo detection. We have two interests. One is whether our music visualization has some different effects from tempo detection's. Another one is whether a pattern of coloring of musical notes affects people subconsciously. So, we designed the software to be able to answer these questions.
The sound has the direction (right and left) and formless.
Therefore, it is necessary to define the shape of the sound to visualize it. We proposed the hue circle model and the Orb-model as a model of visualization. This Orb-model can handle an input signal of a stereo sound, and calculates the frequency spectrum of each right and left channel. A horizontal location of the screen is decided by the spectra ratio of the right and left channels. A vertical location is decided by the pitch of the sound, i.e. the high-pitched sound is displayed in the upper part and low-pitched sound is in the lower one. The size of the orb is decided by the size of the composite vector of the right and left channel spectra. The orb with the color corresponding to the pitch name is displayed. To calculate the frequency spectrum corresponding to each pitch
name, we adopted the pitch discrimination algorithm by the
synchronous addition and subtraction method.
In order to examine how our music visualization affects people, we carried out two evaluation tests. Evaluation 1 is comparing our music visualization with tempo detection's. Evaluation 2 is a evaluation test of our music visualization on two different colorings. Evaluation 1 suggested that our music visualization has some unique characteristics. Evaluation 2 suggested that a pattern of coloring of musical notes does not have definite effect to people.
