Music + Code
Various experiments with music visualizations + programming.
Lucent Manifolds, original music, 2020
I was inspired by Kaki King’s video “The Surface Changes”, which is a stunning performance in terms of both video and sound. After examining the setup of this performance, I thought the guitar being fixed on a stand was quite uncomfortable, and thought there had to be a better way. So I started researching what I’d need to do to achieve something similar without being constrained to the stand. At the same time, I was also recording a song I had recently composed, and it felt like a perfect opportunity to learn advanced projection mapping. I started by learning photogrammetry, creating an accurate 3D model of my guitar. I then used a vive tracker (attached via a custom 3D printed mount) to track the position of my guitar in real-time, so that the visualizations could move with it.
Light and Dark, original music, 2020
For visualizing this track, I created a procedural flower system that spawns and recycles petals as guitar notes are played (transcribed to MIDI, I haven’t yet found satisfactorily responsive/accurate realtime audio to MIDI). I was also practicing advanced visualization techniques in Unity (GPU particles, plane reflections).
Final Fantasy - Prelude Cover, 2018
This was my first music visualization project, that eventually launched me into generative art. The visuals are driven by a MIDI transcription of what I was playing on the guitar.
MIDI to Music Box (open source, musicbox.lumic.space)
I developed this website to easily create SVG layouts to cut paper strips for popular 15/30 note music boxes easily found on Amazon. I was inspired by this video by Wintergatan, and decided to try automating the process of punching holes. In this process, I wrote a MIDI parser ( in typescript from scratch, and used that to create a website to customize the paper strip to fit various paper widths, to handle pagination, etc. I was also exploring creating 3D printable music box discs for the Fischer Price music box, however the nozzle of my 3D printer (0.2 mm) appears too big for the purpose, so that part of the project is still unfinished. In the video, I’m playing an 18 foot long paper strip on a 30-note music box.
Shapes of Sound (live piano A/V performance)
This was a collaboration with my frined Miss Gatsby who played the piano, and I developed various effects to visualize the music. Presented at “Fresh Hydrangea”, Seattle, 2021
Procedural shapes + MIDI
I was experimenting with helical shapes during my study of procedural generation, and made this visualization somewhere during that time.
Particle flowers - guitar visualization
After recording this cover of “Electric Tears” by Buckethead, I wanted to create a lightly choreographed visualization that can convey the mood of the music (and I failed). I tried using attractors and repellors to shape the particles into a flower, but it ended up looking like an onion 🤷