What Your Ears can’t See
Conventional music notation evolved to serve the needs of composers, performers, and conductors. By contrast, Music Animation Machine (MAM) is a musical score for listeners.
A musical score without any measures or clefs sounds confusing – until you see it. That’s the idea behind the Music Animation Machine, which sets the work of Bach, Satie, Chopin and other composers to an animated series of colored bars and dots, to visually explain pitch and timing to those who can’t understand conventional music notation. The result is a sort of meditative “Guitar Hero” experience, with each note lighting up as it’s played across a scrolling screen.
Chopin’s Nocturne in B Major, Op. 32 No.1:
A MAM score illustrates the pitch and timing of the notes of a piece. In MAM notation, all the notes are on the same staff, with different voices indicated by color. As in conventional notation, musical events at different points in the piece can be seen at once, allowing recognition of and comparison between patterns. MAM notation shows the actual irregular timings of notes in a performance, not the mathematically exact timings of conventional notation. The MAM notation can be colored to highlight thematic units, instrumentation, harmony, or dynamics.
MAM scores can be understood by very young children: children as young as eighteen months have demonstrated that they recognize the relationship between the sound and the visual display. Many people are visually oriented and more able to pay attention to visual objects than sounds. This may be the reason that a visual analogue to a piece of music makes it more real to children.
The Music Animation Machine is presented here:
http://www.musanim.com
Debussy’s first Arabesque with MAM-inspired piano score
To add another dimension to the MAM-system in order to make it even more useful as a pedagogical tool for piano students, we have created a special MAM-inspired version of the first Arabesque by Debussy. The note heads of the score are colored according to the MAM-video (version 3) which could help improving awarenes of textural stuctures, voice leading and long melody lines.
Suggested method:
Watch the video a few times. Then print out the colored score below and play from it at the piano. Try to differentiate tonal “colors” and to bring out certain voices such as the bass (purple), melody (blue) or some of the middle voices (green) in the middle section.
Debussy Arabesque no 1 – colored score to download and print (free)
New Urtext score with fingering available:
Debussy Arabesque no 1 – sheet music
Please let us know what you think by posting a comment below.
Do you find this system helpful? What other pieces would you find appropriate as MAM-inspired piano scores?
Comments
What an interesting new way of listening to music! And the coloured sheet music gives some new insights about the piece when playing from it. Thanks!
Thank you for the score and video. Very interesting method. I have printed it and will go and try playing from it now.
Very revealing new way to interpret/understand elements of the score especially since students have varied learning styles. I have a student working on the Debussy and am eager to see how this may enlighten her. Thank you!
I have used a similar thing in teaching students in the past. [Colouring or otherwise indicating several voice parts] I think this method has wide application for younger students and is very interesting to see in operation.
Extraordinaria pieza, y qué mejor manera pedagógica de mostrar esta maravilla. Ojalá pudiera tenerse acceso a la MAM para poder hacer lo mismo con otras piezas, sobre todo, sería utilísimo para los que nos dedicamos a la enseñanza musical. Gracias.
Very interesting, quite beautiful, and augments the music.
I don’t know if it’s because I’m not sufficiently proficient to sight-read music, but I find this new method gives me a more complete appreciation of the performance and the music itself, by helping to focus and follow it more closely.
Thanks for the experience.
Thanks! It is a very nice way to make the music enjoable .pleas try it with Paganini` La campanella -Franz List-
Thanks !
thats a rather unique was of expressing music
i wonder what effects it will have on synaesthete people
Big Big thanks to pianostreet for being committed to satisfying her subscribers. i am really benefiting a lot from piano street and i say continue with ur good works.
Very interesting…
Animation and soud …
Thank you for sending me message about this enjoable music.
It adds an interesting dimension to traditional notation on one hand, but on the other, for someone who has been used to sight-reading since an early age, it can seem to be a distraction. Besides, the concept isn’t new – take a look at how some leading edge modern composers approach conveying their complex music to performers.
Mesmerising to watch and a great way to follow different voices. Wondering what Bach would look like this way!
What a splendid idea! Many other pieces can be more enjoyable through this method. Thanks!
beautiful playing
Beautiful music beautifully performed, very nice.
Thanks for making the sheet available … more please :)
It will be amazing to see Bach’s Fugues animated this way. It would be very helpful for all the pianists, as it will allow us to understand every single theme and voice.
Fantastic concept! Creates another sense of the music and truly helps understand the flowing stream of the music. Beginning students should benefit greatly from this tool. Congratulations.
quite interesting. I am an old beginner(in the sixties) and expecting to find soon something alike but of 2 or 3 level which could be very useful for my efforts many thanks
Fantastic!!!.I want to know as I can obtain all the available
musical works by this MAM. Congratulationes
“Nice idea!!! perfect performance, bringing out the colors as well as revealing some mathematics relations among all elements involved in this piece. Can’t wait practising MAM this way. Ligth, shape, rythm, sonorous chart, the life of each note, sculpturing every movement of music, a Visual contact with sounds.”
Genial!!, un método muy pedagógico para “visualizar” la música
Very inteligent. Helps your brain coordinate two diferent systems (visual and auditory) in one task, and easily. I supose that this kind of experience may enhance the “reading scores” ability, by leading to pay attention in both stimuli as one, and in this way, facilitates the third system integration (motor), for music performance. A real pedagogical tool. And it is so nice! Thank you piano street to share.
Wonderful Music!
A refreshing new approach. I think the extra visual components could be a great help, especially to those just starting to learn the piano.
The size of the circle ought to represent how loud a note is, not how long it lasts (which can be inferred from the length of the line following the note anyway).
It’s a wonderfull way of listening to music, this applies more colours, emotions and gives undertanding for how to play the piece. Thank you so much for great experience
It is much like grapheme synesthesia, if you have heard about it . . I can relate; and ears of some people can definitely SEE. I wonder if a synesthete created this amazing machine?
I have been using this technique (albeit with colour pencils) for many years. What’s more, for notes that are far apart, I also indicate the phrase from the beginning to the end, either with a bow or by just connecting the notes. It certainly helps to decipher polyphony in Bach or Haydn!
Adobe Acrobat has a pencil (and eraser) tool that allows to do this and save the document.
Being able to directly colour the notes is an advancement indeed.
I know that Debussy did not like to be associated with the Impressionist painters but the colours chosen for this representation of the lovely First Arabesque put the music and the MAM art firmly in the Impressionist school. This is an absolute delight.