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Notation Innovation

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OKAY!! So I have worked long and hard on this Notation Innovation Project and I can't believe that I am almost done (because event as  I am writing this, I am not finished). However, through this page I will attempt to explain to you everything that I encountered during this project.. so here we go. 

We were introduced with this project in January and were told that by the end of the semester we had to come up with our own way of notating music. Since January I have though long and hard about how I would go about this daunting task. Over the semester I have spent countless hours in the Innovation Lab working on various projects. While working, I saw how they (someone in the innovation lab) shocked a piece of wood and how the electric shocks resulted in this beautiful creation of sporadic lines across the wood. Immediately, I tried to figure out how I could incorporate this into my own Notation Innovation project. Finally, I came up with the idea to equal the voltage of electricity to the frequency of sound. Through my research and help from Jessica Anderson in the Innovation Lab, I quickly figured out that while my idea was great and grand, a project of that size would take more than the two weeks I had to turn it in. On top of this, I found out that our final project had shifted from Notation Innovation to a Notation Narrative. So I said, "Hey! why not do both!" I did not realize what I had gotten myself into.

For our Notation Narrative, we were to make this website/book thingy. I didn't like that idea so I told my teacher that I was going to do a documentary of how I actualized my Notation Innovation project instead. But then I started exploring this website/book thingy and ended up liking it so now you have a Notation Innovation, Notation Narrative, and a documentary! 

Anyways, when I started my Notation Innovation project I was faced with many challenges. The first major challenge was trying to figure out what in the world am I doing and how does it actually relate to what we've learned in class. The second major challenge was figuring out how to make my idea come to life by on a smaller, less time consuming scale. And the last was figuring out how I was going to equal the frequency of sound to voltage. Through time and research, I answered all of these questions.

Pictured here is my masterpiece! I essentially made a graph and equaled the frequency of sound to voltage in Hertz. I then chose a simple song (Happy Birthday) that could be measured over twenty-four beats. This will ultimately serve as my prototype for my bigger project that will include wood and real electricity. Since I could not shock the acrylic that the graph is printed on I tried to make the lines resemble what an electric shock would look like. When I finished, I was amazed to see how this linear form of notation mimicked my own form of notation that I visualized through every notation assignment. Each notation assignment helped me to make my masterpiece and I couldn't be prouder of my work. 

This page has replies:

  1. Notes Sakinah A Davis This is AWESOME!!!! I love it! I'm sad that I wasn't here to see the finished product on the wood (Professor Jones told me about it and was very impressed), but a very well constructed project. You should be proud of yourself for thinking outside of the box! This is definitely something that could even be Research Day material, especially because it connects physics, technology and music. VERY well done!!!

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