Beethoven's 5th as Bar Graph Animation with Instructions

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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around an animated bar graph representation of Beethoven's 5th Symphony, illustrating the instruments playing and their corresponding notes. Participants share their experiences, opinions, and technical insights related to the animation and its creation, touching on themes of music visualization, MIDI file usage, and personal preferences in classical music.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Technical explanation
  • Debate/contested

Main Points Raised

  • Some participants express enjoyment of the animated bar graph representation, noting its appeal and educational value for children.
  • Concerns are raised about background noise detracting from the experience.
  • One participant compares the visualization to cellular automata.
  • There is a suggestion that the mapping of MIDI files is fundamental to how the animation is created, with a discussion on the technical aspects of MIDI messages.
  • Participants speculate on the method used to map notes to instruments, with one proposing the use of Fourier Transforms, while another asserts it relies on MIDI file information.
  • Opinions on classical composers vary, with some favoring Bach or Mozart over Beethoven, while others argue for Beethoven's superiority.
  • A link to a PDF detailing the instruments and their corresponding colors is shared, enhancing the discussion's educational aspect.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants generally agree on the enjoyment and novelty of the animated representation, but there are competing views regarding the best classical composer and the technical details of the animation's creation. The discussion remains unresolved on the specifics of how the mapping is accomplished.

Contextual Notes

Some technical claims about MIDI file processing and instrument mapping are made, but the discussion does not resolve the accuracy of these claims or the assumptions behind them.

WiFO215
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This is Beethoven's 5th, but with a catch - it's depicted using bar graphs. It shows what instruments are playing and generates an animation to go along with the music. The colors correspond to the instruments and the level of the bar to different notes. The user has even given instructions on the side to make your own.
 
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Pretty cool. I like it! :-)
 
Way cool. But the noise in the background kind of ruins it.
 
nice, looks like cellular automata.
 
Isnt that how midi files are mapped to begin with?
 
Both my boys, 4 and 6, watched through this twice. They tried to pick out which colors were which instruments.
 
Chi Meson said:
Both my boys, 4 and 6, watched through this twice. They tried to pick out which colors were which instruments.

I think reds, pinks, oranges are strings. Blues and greens are brass and woodwind. That's as much as I could pick out on a single pass through since there are very few parts where instruments play solo. I think piccolos are all the way at the top. It seems to be arranged in order of pitch range, with highest pitch instruments on the top, and lowest at the bottom, so that would probably help in figuring them all out.
 
Yeah these things are cool, used to watch them before when I got bored painting, you can make your own too... I think there's like a site or a program for it(never did it myself).
I'd rather listen to Bach though :)
 
In early nineties I used Gravis Ultrasound sound card - one of the programs that came with the card was a MIDI player that show this kind of output.
 
  • #10
Beethoven's visuals while deaf?
 
  • #11
Chi Meson said:
Both my boys, 4 and 6, watched through this twice. They tried to pick out which colors were which instruments.

There's a link on the youtube page posted by anirudh215:

http://www.musanim.com/pdf/Instruments_B5.pdf

Its a one page pdf created by the guy who produced the video which shows the instruments and their colors... I like to watch for the timpani (gray) at ~04:20
 
  • #12
10x better than any of those windows media type visualizers for music. It actually goes with the music in a consistent and logical way.
 
  • #13
Sorry! said:
Yeah these things are cool, used to watch them before when I got bored painting, you can make your own too... I think there's like a site or a program for it(never did it myself).
I'd rather listen to Bach though :)

Bach?? Don't kid yourself. Mozart is the only way to go. :-p

Getting back to the video though. How does the computer map every note to the instrument? Perhaps it does Fourier Transforms then maps the fundamental harmonics to the respective instrument?
 
  • #14
Thanks, it is really nice to picture it like that.
 
  • #15
anirudh215 said:
Getting back to the video though. How does the computer map every note to the instrument? Perhaps it does Fourier Transforms then maps the fundamental harmonics to the respective instrument?

As I wrote before - it simply uses information from MIDI file. Nothing more fancy, but someone patiently entered musical score into MIDI format.

MIDI message (or event, I don't remember how they are called) has three types of information - time, on or off, instrument, pitch. Eons ago I coded my own MIDI player, it is not a rocket scienece. And every MIDI player when working has all information needed to generate such a video.

Besides, I am too lazy to check, but I won't be surprised if the instruments in the video are sorted just by the standard instrument codes (something like these listed here: http://midistudio.com/Help/GMSpecs_Patches.htm).

Zero magic for me.
 
  • #16
Checked it out... pretty cool!
 
  • #17
Very nice. It would be great if you could see every song this way.
 
  • #18
anirudh215 said:
Bach?? Don't kid yourself. Mozart is the only way to go. :-p

I think Mozart is overrated, as far as classical music goes, I would say that Beethoven is the best.
 
  • #19
Tchaikovsky gets little credit for his magnificence.
 
  • #20
Borg said:
Very nice. It would be great if you could see every song this way.

I DO :bugeye:
 

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