rhythm design process
TRANSCRIPT
Jennifer BriselliTMC 2013School of DesignCarnegie Mellon University
rhythm process
1. song selection
Huun-Huur-TuÖske Cherde (Foreign Land)
The assignment for this project was to “give visual dynamic form to a piece of music.”
The first challenge was to select a song with distinct rhythm.
I have long been a fan of khoomei, or Tuvan throat singing: a vocalization style where multiple pitches are created simultaneously over a fundamental pitch. For some, it’s an acquired taste, and learning to hear the beautiful tones created within the fundamental pitch, (usually a deeper growl), was a wonderful moment for me.
I chose a song by Huun-Huur-Tu that incorporates instruments and traditional vocals along with some khoomei.
2. sketching
I listened to the song several times, sketching abstract gestural forms as it played.
I tried to visualize each instrument separately, and then together as one.
When I listen to throat singing, I feel/hear/see the notes hiding behind other notes. They are there to be heard but somehow hard to pay attention to, like something that flutters in your peripheral vision but disappears when you look directly at it.
3. storyboarding
I began transforming the gestural sketches into a storyboard. I wanted to avoid conventional geometric shapes and aimed instead for a more organic feel.
When I listen to this song, I imagine brightly colored lines swaying and braiding back and forth.
I decided to attempt a digital representation of that visual experience. My goal was for the effect to be mesmerizing, or hypnotizing.
4. digital sketching
I had no idea where to start, to achieve this visual effect. So, I just started playing. I didn’t save most of these files; I just fooled around in After Effects, applying filters and effects to various objects, cameras, and background shapes.
I experimented with timing as well.
5. refining
With feedback from Dan & my classmates, I explored the “wiggling lines” theme further, and experimented with moments that allowed for alignment of visual behavior and rhythmic sound.
To visualize the parts of the song with throat singing, I wanted to make the ‘vocal’ lines behave like the vocals: somewhat hard to see but also deviating and rising out of the mesmerizing ‘instrumental’ lines.
6. letting it go
While there is always a little more one can do, I’ve found it important to learn when to stop working and let a piece be complete. There are certainly more refinements I’d like to make- playing with color in a few places, experimenting with more splashes of behavior that match the rhythm in pulses or twitches, for example.
However, this piece ended up in a finished state that represents fairly well the mental imagery I experience when I listen to the song. A number of people described the video as hypnotizing or mesmerizing and several complemented the aesthetic of the wavering lines that move along to the vocals.
I may have this song stuck in my head for months, thanks to this assignment.
