Idea Transcript
Music Blocks
Category: music theory
Devin’s Travels in Japan This blogpost details one of Music Block’s main contributors travels to share Music Blocks with the people of Japan. Devin Ulibarri has studied Japanese for a little less than 20 years and has a long relationship with the country. The first time he traveled to Japan was when he was 15 years old for a home stay program (i.e. exchange program). He started studying Japanese on his own when he was 13 years old and has continued his studies as much as possible over the years. Recently, he had the opportunity to travel again to Japan, this time to visit family and to share Music Blocks with various leaders in the field of education. The following is Devin’s telling of this most recent trip.
Image of the wing of the plane taken on the trip to Japan.
D E C E MB E R 1 4 T H I woke up at 4 a.m. to finish some last minute business in Boston, and then scooped up my things and jumped into the taxi for the airport. Since the end of November I had been preparing the translation of Music Blocks for a Japanese audience. I also had been busy contacting interested groups in Japan and scheduling meetings beforehand. One very noteworthy person I was excited to meet was Sachiko Nakajima who works to bring “Math, Music, and STEAM Education” to schools in Japan. I had seen her TEDx video and also received some help looking over my initial translations of Music Blocks. She also went out of her way to include me in a few of her meetings in Japan, including a presentation at a High School in Yokohama scheduled for the day after I arrived in the country. Because of the time difference, I arrived in Japan the following day, on December 15th.
D E C E MB E R 1 6 T H
Devin Ulibarri (left) and Sachiko Nakajima (right) in front of the Yokohama Frontier Science School. The sign says ‘Open School’.
Less than 24 hours after landing in Japan I had the opportunity to attend the Yokohama Frontier Science High School’s monthly open house. Furthermore, this particular open house was a special once a year “Science Saturday”. I successfully navigated my way to Yokohama and then to the local train station, which I was a little worried about given Japan’s complex train and bus system and my jet lag, and followed a large group of children accompanied by their parents to the school. After a brief “behind the scenes” introduction of what was to come, I sat in the audience of a very nice lecture/concert hall and listened to three high school students present their findings in the subject of mathematics. The students all did very well. One student presented on Vedic math, which I have always found to be fascinating. When the students’ presentations were over, Sachiko began her lecture.
A photo of Sachiko’s presentation. The slide asks the question “Why is the octave split into 12 divisions?” and “Two to what power equals three?”
Sachiko’s lecture intersected at many places where we have been experimenting with for Music Blocks. For example, she showed and performed Bach’s famous “Crab Canon” whose single written staff is suppose to be played forwards and backwards simultaneously to create a two part counterpoint piece. She also explored questions like “Why is the octave (for the common chromatic scale) split into 12?” These explorations are ones that we have in some of our examples.
A comparison of different tuning systems: Pythagorean (top), Just Intonation (middle), and 12 tone equal temperament (bottom).
Sachiko presented on various tuning systems (In the slide above: Pythagorean (top), Just Intonation (middle), and 12 tone equal temperament (bottom)). She finds the prospect of exploring tuning using a programming language such as Music Blocks exciting since it makes experimentation much easier to do than with physical objects.
A screenshot of a Music Blocks project that explores the division of the octave into 53 equal parts.
After Sachiko was finished, I got the opportunity to show Music Blocks to the open house attendees. I showed some of the basics of the language first (i.e. note value and pitch). Then I went on to showcase some of the same examples Sachiko gave, this time as Music Blocks code. First, I showed what dividing the octave into various divisions looks like in Music Blocks (the image above is a screenshot of the code).
Since Sachiko had demonstrated Bach’s famous “Crab Canon”, I thought it appropriate to show the output of the Music Blocks Crab Canon as its Lilypond output.
Since Sachiko had demonstrated Bach’s famous “Crab Canon”, I thought it appropriate to show the output of the Music Blocks Crab Canon as its Lilypond output. After the talk, a group of ten or so interested High School students came to the stage. I handed them my contact information as well as a few USB’s with copies of Music Blocks’ source code so that they may try Music Blocks at any time as well as study the source code if they so choose to do so.
Devin presents Music Blocks for the first time to a Japanese audience at the Yokohama Frontier Science School’s Open House and Science Saturday.
To read a translation of the Yokohama Frontier Science School Blog Article abut the event, click here.
January 2, 2018 Mouse Musician education, free software, Japan, music education, music theory, Uncategorized, workshops, , ulibarri, music blocks, Music Theory, programming, visual programming language, , , , , , Leave a comment
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Constructionism, devin
East Indian Solfege Block + Graphics Block Translation! In Music Blocks, it might be common for you to use the note block with the Western Solfege, where we use “do”, “re”, “mi”, “fa”, “sol”, “la”, and “ti”.
Note Block with Western Solfege
Music Notations
However, we have implemented a new feature — the East Indian Solfege!
Note Block with East Indian Solfege
The East Indian Solfege comprises of “sa”, “re”, “ga”, “ma”, “pa”, “dha”, and “ni”, and where: ‘sa’ = ‘do’ re’ = ‘re’ ‘ga’ = ‘me’ ‘ma’ = ‘fa’ pa’ = ‘sol’ ‘dha’ = ‘la’ ni’ = ‘ti’ The seven notes of the musical scale in Indian classical music are shadja ( dhaivat (
) and nishad (
), rishabh (
), gandhar (
), madhyam (
), pancham (
),
). These seven svara are shortened to Sa, Ri (Carnatic) or Re (Hindustani), Ga, Ma, Pa, Dha, and Ni. Collectively these notes are
known as the sargam (the word is an acronym of the consonants of the first four svaras). Sargam is the Indian equivalent to solfege. Extracted from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svara Check this new feature out under the pitch menu! Moreover, we have also implemented a i18n (internationalization) translation for the Graphics Blocks, which enables them to be translated across different languages!
Translation for Graphic Blocks (Picture shown is in Spanish)
As Music Blocks is expanding globally to children and adults all over the world, it is vital that we can have solfege of different languages to provide greater accessibility and transparency for users! It was widely said that music is the language spoken across different languages, so we hope that you have enjoyed using this East Indian Solfege Block and the translation of Graphics Block in your native language, and learnt more about music across different countries!
March 17, 2017
emilyo11
2016-2017 GCI, GCI, music theory, Student Work, Uncategorized
UNM Theory and Composition Professor, Richard Hermann, on Music Blocks Dr. Richard Hermann is the professor of Music Theory and Composition for the Univeristy of New Mexico (UNM) and he was my music theory teacher during my undergraduate studies at UNM. Last week, I had the pleasure of meeting with Dr. Hermann in person and was able to show him Music Blocks’ overall design and current features. This was his response in an email the following day:
I think Music Blocks will inspire many young folks to become programmers, mathematicians, composers, and music theorists. It will also provide important experiences to other young folk who pursue other fields. You are to be congratulated on your efforts.
Richard Hermann, PhD, Prof. of Music Theory and Composition, University of New Mexico In addition to his praise, Dr. Hermann offered valuable advice to improve the underlying design of Music Blocks. Most notably, he quickly identified that Invert Block was missing the feature to rotate on axes that lie between the twelve semitone pitches. To remedy this, Walter Bender implemented an Invert Odd Block (click to see the commit) to compliment our current Invert (Even) Block. Other advised improvements will be noted as they are implemented.
Richard Hermann with Luciano Berio in Rome, 2000
July 4, 2016 devin Composition, education, music education, music theory, Richard Hermann, University of New Mexico, UNM Interdisciplinary, Math, Music Theory, Musical Composition, Richard Hermann, University of New Mexico
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