Colouring Music

Primary supervisor

David Taniar

Co-supervisors

  • Vishnu Monn (Monash University, Malaysia)
  • Wong Kok Sheik (Monash University, Malaysia)

Do you play any classical music instruments, like piano or violin? Would you like to combine your advanced music skills with computer science. This project analyses classical music using computer science techniques.

Aim/outline

Do you like colouring books?
Can you imagine if we could colour music; how would the music look like?
The following article explains an attempt to visualize music.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/pildk22g900s3j6/iiwas2010_music_paper.pdf?dl=0

This project focuses on Theme and Variations of classical music.
Theme and Variations is a form of musical structure, where the theme is repeated in different kinds of variations. One famous example of Theme and Variations is 'Twinkle twinkle little stars' played in piano.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYSk2r9YqeU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BTvoqVK420
It is actually Mozart 12 Variations in C, K.265 on "Ah, vous dirai-je Maman"; it consists of a theme and twelve variations.

If music can be visualized using colours, then the theme and its variations would look more similar than to totally a different piece of music. Therefore, music visualization using colours can be used to measure the similarities and differences between a theme and it's variations, as well as among variations. 

URLs/references

https://www.musictheoryacademy.com/understanding-music/theme-and-variations/
Some examples of Theme and Variations:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YFX-XQLToE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0DZARmcRso
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOds7jLtXnI
 

Required knowledge

You must be an intermediate music instrument player (e.g. minimum grade 5/6 piano, violin/cello). Prior knowledge on signal processing is necessary.