What does music look like? The Shape of Song is an attempt to answer this seemingly paradoxical question. View Shape of Song online.



Related academic paper:

Arc Diagrams: Visualizing Structure in Strings, InfoVis 2002.





At Generator.x, Oslo, 2005

photo: Marius Watz





The Shape of Song began as a quest to "see" musical form. I created a visualization method called an arc diagram that highlighted repeated sections of music--or of any sequence--with translucent arcs. (Read a simple or complicated explanation if you like.) The resulting images reflect the full range of musical forms, from the deep structure of Bach to the crystalline beauty of Philip Glass. The image above, for instance, is a view of Madonna's Like a Virgin. The method has since inspired many variations, as can be seen in the visualcomplexity.com catalog of arc diagrams. Below I show more of the many forms that this visualization can take. In these images time runs downwards, rather than left to right. Some of these may be available as prints, if you are interested.





