Visual Music

Visual Music is based on the principle that there are both natural visual manifestations and invented visual representations of musical elements and musical structures. The Visual Music page links to images from Pellegrino's video and laser pieces; articles, books, and messages on the theoretical foundations and applications of visual music; and sites of fellow music visualizers with their own perspectives on the field. The information in this section of the site is accessible through either of two lists, a Titles List and a Dated Annotated List (latest posts first).

Titles List

Academic Visual Music Sites
Animated Laser Visual Music Meditations

Book by Ron Pellegrino, THE ELECTRONIC ARTS OF SOUND AND LIGHT
Book by Hazrat Inayat Khan, THE MYSTICISM OF SOUND AND MUSIC
Book by the Swiss physicist Han Jenny, CYMATICS

Compositional Algorithms As Cyberspirit Attractors
Compositional Field-tests

Discovering, Cultivating, and Using Your Own Voice

Ephemeral Forms: Mother Musing's Flight Patterns

Graphical Groove: Memorium for a Visual Music System

History of Pellegrino's involvement with visual music

The iota Exchanges - Set 1
The iota Exchanges - Set 2
The iota Exchanges - Set 3
The iota Exchanges - Set 4

Laser Seraphim - Fast
Levels of Algorithmic Composition

Matrix Alignment
Message to MIMI and the Illuminati: Ralph Abraham & Peter Broadwell & Ami Radunskaya
Metabiosis V : A Light, Sound, and Audience Environment
Metaesthetics issues, topic epi-centers, ideas, and attractors satellite page
The Metaesthetics List

Omnimedia On The Road

Patterns of Nature: Rhythms of Life
Performance-multimedia
Playing Free of the Box
Principles for Learning to Compose with Sound and Light

Sample Residencies and Performance Events
Sites of music visualizers.
Study 6 - Keb, a video excerpt of one of the 10 studies included on the first two DVD volumes of the Visual Music Studies DVD Series
SYNESTHESIA AND DIGITAL PERCEPTION, an article by Brazilian artist/researcher Sérgio R. Basbaum

Taoist Magic Figures

The Unison, a video excerpt from Visual Music Meditations

Video excerpts of Pellegrino's visual music work
Visual Music and the iota List - Responses and replies to the essay
Visual Music Flavors
Visual Music Forum
Visual Music Studies DVD Series

Why the world should care about sonification.

Dated Annotated List

Continuing issue updated periodically - Sites of music visualizers.
November 10, 2003. An article by Brazilian artist/researcher Sérgio R. Basbaum entitled SYNESTHESIA AND DIGITAL PERCEPTION. Rare work that clarifies the historical and conceptual foundation for visual music.
July 11, 2003. The first installment of materials from a recent project called the Visual Music Studies DVD Series including descriptions and explanatory notes from the first two DVD volumes entitled Pythagoras & Pellegrino In Petaluma. A video excerpt, called Study 6 - Keb, of one of the 10 studies included on the first two DVD volumes of the Visual Music Studies DVD Series. An increase by a factory of 4 of the image size of the video excerpts available on this site.
March 7, 2002. A set of three expository posts to the Metaesthetics List on the subject of Matrix Alignment, an approach to systems analysis and communication in the electronic arts.
April 24, 2001. The "Metaesthetics issues, topic epi-centers, ideas, and attractors" satellite page, a working list taken from posts by participants in the The Metaesthetics List.
April 12, 2001. The Metaesthetics List devoted to the exploration, development, and articulation of metatheories of the electronic arts of sound and light that include an integrative approach to music, dynamic visual art, established technology, emerging technology, metaphysics, psychophysics, psychology, mathematics, sociology, communications theory, ancient knowledge, emerging knowledge, and any other related branch of human learning and searching.
March 26, 2001. The Unison, a video excerpt from Visual Music Meditations. An example of music and imagery derived from the same set of stereo wavetrains.
March 6, 2001. A response to an item in an iota Newsletter written by Larry Cuba (a filmmaker and one of iota's prime movers) in reference to my essay entitled Visual Music and the iota List .
February 13, 2001. A set of three excerpts from a current visual music video project, The Deb Fox Heterophonic Alchemical Tours.
December 20, 2000. Responses and replies to my essay entitled Visual Music and the iota List
November 20, 2000. An essay on Compositional Field-tests.
November 14, 2000. Another video excerpt: Cynthia's Dream
November 11, 2000. An essay entitled Visual Music and the iota List, written after a year and a half of researching the iota list by interacting with its subscribers, mostly filmmakers and video animators.
September 16, 2000. Another video excerpt: Winter Reflections
September 12, 2000. A new section of the web site devoted to video excerpts of Pellegrino's visual music work. The first post is Feedback: Liquid Light.
August 28, 2000. Another set of iota exchanges covering the ideas of oscilloscopic imagery, atonality, non-linear behavior, Mickey Mouse sync, multimodal experience, nonsense, and tracking Glass and Reich..
July 19, 2000. Another set of iota exchanges covering the ideas of synesthesia, mapping, symbolic logic, THE AGE OF SPIRITUAL MACHINES, and NTSC video.
July 17, 2000. A new set of performance-multimedia images from framegrabs of Pellegrino's video work in a University of Wisconsin performance in September of 1999. Thumbnail link sets are found on the Sample Program 1 - Collaborative Event page.
July 12, 2000. An essay entitled Omnimedia On The Road drawn from my experiences of taking my performance-multimedia shows on the road.
June 26, 2000. Some thoughts about composing visual music with a music synthesizer-driven laser animation system written in the context of the posting of a music sample used with my laser performances - Laser Seraphim - Fast
August 21, 1999. The iota Exchanges, a set of email exchanges from the iota discussion group on subjects that are related to the visual music and compositional thinking sections of this site. iota is an organization dedicated to preserving and promoting the art of light and movement.
August 15, 1999. A follow-up exchange to Playing Free of the Box, my first response to some remarks by Stephen Malinowski in reference to issues that surfaced by way of my participation in a day long gathering of music visualizers on July 11, 1999.
July 21, 1999. Playing Free of the Box, my response to some remarks by Stephen Malinowski in reference to issues that surfaced by way of my participation in a day long gathering of music visualizers on July 11, 1999.
May 16, 1999. Principles for Learning to Compose with Sound and Light, an extension of the essay on Discovering, Cultivating, and Using Your Own Voice.
December 8, 1998. A new section devoted to Academic Visual Music Sites.
October 29, 1998. A link to Laurie Spiegel's essay - Graphical Groove: Memorium for a Visual Music System. She discusses her work with VAMPIRE (Video And Music Program for Interactive Realtime Exploration/Experimentation) as well as her approach to developing intelligent instruments and compositional algorithms.
October 26, 1998. The first installment of an extended essay on Compositional Algorithms As Cyberspirit Attractors.
October 12, 1998. A short statement on the Levels of Algorithmic Composition written in response to an email message.
September 16, 1998. Some thoughts on Why the world should care about sonification.
August 6, 1998. A recommendation for composers of sonic and visual music to study a book by the Swiss physicist Han Jenny, Cymatics.
June 29, 1998. A strong recommendation for composers of sonic and visual music to study a book by Hazrat Inayat Khan, THE MYSTICISM OF SOUND AND MUSIC.
November 27, 1997. A description of the system and process used to create Animated Laser Visual Music Meditations, a recently completed set of performance-multimedia pieces.
May 27, 1997. An extensive set of excerpts from my book on The Electronic Arts of Sound and Light that cover the subjects of performance multimedia, visual music, and real-time composition.
May, 1997. A list of Visual Music Flavors with descriptions that provide insight into the variety of approaches to visual music.
April 25, 1997. - An email message to MIMI and the Illuminati: Ralph Abraham & Peter Broadwell & Ami Radunskaya, "three mathematician-artists who collaborate in an erodynamic exhibition of sound and light, in which mathematical models and physical systems are explored, traveling from predictable trajectories through the edge of chaos and beyond." The message is included on this site because it deals with the subjects of visual music and performance multimedia.
March 1997 - An essay on Discovering, Cultivating, and Using Your Own Voice. The principles apply to any creative work, including music composition.
January 1997 - A history of Pellegrino's involvement with visual music written in response to email inquiries.
November 1996 - An essay on Patterns of Nature: Rhythms of Life. Written for the January 1997 Ylem Newletter; appears there in a highly abbreviated version.
October 1996 - An essay on real-time composition, Ephemeral Forms: Mother Musing's Flight Patterns , from my second book, The Electronic Arts of Sound and Light (Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1983)
June 1996 - Music Visualization in Performance-multimedia, an integration of music, dance, and performance videography.
April 1996 - Six laser-based Taoist Magic Figures and links to sites of music visualizers.
April 1996 - Metabiosis V : A Light, Sound, and Audience Environment. An example of a very early algorithmic composition.

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