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Seminar - All welcome Using the Eyes to Guide the Ears: On Visualizing Music Eric J. Isaacson (Indiana University) Musical experience is ephemeral and unique to each person. To communicate about music, scholars therefore sometimes employ graphical musical representations. Such musical images can represent abstract musical structures, aspects of a single piece, musical collections, or meta-musical information. An image’s communicative power depends on many factors. This talk focuses on two that specifically engage the viewer’s cognitive capacity: (1) the role of metaphor, our high-level capacity for understanding through analogy, and (2) design decisions that leverage our pre-cognitive visual apparatus to guide viewers to an image’s most important information. Dozens of examples will illustrate the principles discussed. |
A/Prof Eric Isaacson has been on the faculty at Indiana University, USA since 1993 where he has served as chair of the music theory department and Director of Graduate Studies for the school. He is former editor of Music Theory Online, was the founder SMT’s Music Informatics Group, and served a term as SMTs treasurer. He has also served as conductor of the Southern Indiana Wind Ensemble and Interim Executive Director of Louisville Ballet. His book, Visualizing Music, will be published by Indiana University press in May 2023.
