Featured in Web Audio Weekly
Shape Your Music is a geometric sequencer that suggests one answer to the question "What does a shape sound like?". The result is something like a musical geoboard where edges represent notes, and angles represent the intervals between those notes. Wondering how it sounds? Try it yourself!
Features
- Draw multiple shapes to generate unique polyrhythms
- Manipulate shapes in real time to improvise and perform
- Experiment with different musical modes, keys, and tempos
- Use grid and syncing options to create defined rhythms and loops
- Move shapes up or down to transpose them within the scale, or side to side to move them in stereo space
- Change and adjust the sound that each color produces
- Record and export your project as either an audio file or as MIDI files
- Save projects and browse other people's creations
How it Works
Melodic loops are created by drawing shapes. When a shape plays, a node traverses the perimeter of the shape at a constant speed, sounding a note at each vertex. Thus each edge represents a note. The first note of a shape is determined by the shape's y position on the plane. The note for each subsequent edge is determined by the angle between that edge and the previous edge. This angle determines the musical interval between the two notes. For example: A sharp left turn means that the next note is much higher than the previous, while a shallow right turn means that the next note is a little lower. When the last point is reached, the loop starts again.
To demonstrate, here is the Star Wars Theme in shape form: