> Message: 2
> Date: Thu, 12 Dec 2013 14:45:41 -0800
> From: Jim Long <address@hidden>
> To: address@hidden
> Subject: Re: lilypond-user Digest, Vol 133, Issue 102
> Message-ID: <address@hidden>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
> On Thu, Dec 12, 2013 at 07:24:51AM +0100, David Kastrup wrote:
> > Kieren MacMillan <address@hidden> writes:
> >
> > > I was
> > > brainstorming an orchestration teaching tool, where one
could find the
> > > distribution of notes in an instrument across an entire
score, to show
> > > students where [good] composers tend to have their instruments
play.
> > >
> > > How hard would that be to implement as a function?
> >
> > Probably easiest done as an engraver as then you have the timing
> > information (absolute and bar number) available.
>
> Perhaps I misunderstand Kieren and/or David, but I took Kieren's
> idea to be a sort of 'spectral' analysis, whereas David's reply
> seems to imply a 'temporal' analysis. At least, I understand
> Kieren to be wondering "what is the distribution of pitches
> assigned to a given instrument throughout this score?" or less
> technically, what portion of each instrument's range does this
> score utilize? This is somewhat like a "weighted ambitus"
as
> shown perhaps by a bell curve which shows not only the highest
> and lowest pitches, but also includes the weighting of which
> pitches are used more frequently than others.
>
> David's comment makes me wonder, "what group of instruments are
> likely to be playing [at all; and how loudly] during any given
> moment of the score, and how does the instrumentation (possibly
> including the relative density [note count, dynamics]) change
> through the timeline of the score?" This makes my mind's
eye
> envision a line graph with dynamics as a dependent variable of
> time, and differently colored (or dotted/dashed) lines showing
> the relative amplitude (dynamics) of each instrument or group of
> instruments (strings/brass/woodwinds/percussion,
> kazoo/washtub/spoons, whatever).
>
> Not that I'm putting this on anyone's to-do list! I just wanted
> to compliment both brainstormers for posing some interesting
> questions.
>
Jim,
Have you seen the 'musanim' music animations on YouTube? Here is an example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSCXB-zwiJg(Beethoven Pastoral Symphony, first mvmt.) The creator of the videos, and the software used to
make the videos, makes the software (MAM) available (for Windows only?):
http://www.musanim.com/all/ - it uses a MIDI file as input
They are a moving graphical representation of the
score with different colors representing different instruments, and some
of them represent dynamics as well, and pitch represented by vertical position.
If you could somehow print the entire thing out, it would accomplish the
temporal analysis part.
This is not intended to be a solution to your problem,
but it is related and interesting.