Contextualisation for Graphic Notation Assignment

This post, much like my previous entry about the soundscape piece, is just a reflection of my own work and thought process as I work on the graphic notation assignment. For this one, I've given a lot of attention to the colour of each element as it appears, and I hope that comes through in the final product. For instance, the video starts and ends with a simple black backdrop which the more visually interesting elements are set against. I've used a single bass note to represent this backdrop, which other than fading in and out in the beginning and end, never changes in volume, pitch or any other parameter. I'm hoping the unchanging simplistic nature of this low F note evokes the consistency and colour of the black backdrop.

The next visual element to be introduced is a series of swirling orange lines that dance around in the middle of the frame for most of the piece. My immediate thought was to try to capture both the swirling movement of the lines and their orange colour against the black backdrop. I used the arpeggiator in Logic's MIDI effects menu and tweaked until I found a setting that seemed to fit the somewhat random pattern of the orange lines, and a dreamy bell tone seemed appropriate for the wondrous spectacle of the dancing lines. Combined with the low F in the bass, the arpeggiated bell sound forms a 7th chord with the added 9, which to me sounds very orange or red. 

Next is a series of white lines that scroll vertically down the frame at a constant rate. For this, I used a fairly simple EDM drum beat to evoke the rhythmic movement of the lines as they progress down the screen, mostly unadorned by effects to capture the simplicity and some might say sterility of the white colour. The drums fade away in time with the white lines, and they're replaced by a series of more orange lines which are vertical and remain on both sides of the frame but seem to pulse from side to side with changes in brightness. These lines are represented by a sustained minor chord panned hard left and right, but with an amplitude modulation effect in place to match the pulsing visual.

Eventually, these fade away as well and the drum pattern comes back in along with the white lines. However, there's a subtle difference in that the outlines of the orange lines are still visible within the white lines moving down the screen, almost like a lingering ghost of an element that had seemingly died. I debated whether this was a significant enough element to address in my track and ultimately decided in favour of it. To achieve this effect, I simply automated the volume down about 5 dB and simultaneously cut most of the lows and mids out of the frequency spectrum, making it sound like it's faded away but is still barely there in the background.

The final visual component in this piece is a spiky glowing blue kind of orb that appears in the middle of the frame. This happens in sync with the dancing orange lines fading into grey outlines like the vertical orange lines had previously done. Thus, the same automation treatment is applied here, but to signal the colour change from orange to blue, the arpeggiated chord also changes by one note. The 7th which was D# becomes E to make it a major 7th instead, and with the added 9th I think this one note change evokes the colour change quite effectively. To represent the spiky blue orb, a synth stab echoes this chord and is heavily affected by flanger and wah wah to capture the trippy quality of the visual.

Eventually, all the elements aside from the blue orb are scrolled down to the bottom of the frame and disappear, while the blue orb sort of dissolves into more basic splotches of blue before fading away and leaving us once again with the solitary black backdrop.