Flying Dream on YouTube
This may have been the most intense art project of my life. Some time early in 2012, I got it into my head to create a stop-motion animation of my song Flying Dream, moving in harmonic space. I’ve spent the past five months working like crazy on it. The song is carefully arranged using the lattice of fifths and thirds, sung and played in just intonation, and animated using colored lenses, rice paper and a flashlight.
If it doesn’t play smoothly, don’t hesitate to lower the resolution. It survives scaling well, and the timing is crucial.
This video encompasses almost everything I’ve learned in the past couple of years. I will be writing much more about it. Meanwhile, here are a couple of external links about the basic subjects:
Next: Back Story
Gary, that was amazing! I love the attention to detail in the animation, with how smoothly the stone moves from spot to spot and the color shifts and everything, so so cool. I wish I understood it better!
-loren
Thanks Loren! Stay tuned, I will be expanding this website considerably. Best to you and the fam!
That was really cool, Gary. A different version of “sheet music”.
Thanks, Jill!
Beautiful! My body is buzzing like a bee after hearing/seeing this.
Oh, god, it’s so amazing and demonstrable! Where can I get such a sofware (if it’s exist, of course)?
Thanks! No software involved, it’s stop motion animation. The whole story is in the original post, http://www.garygarrett.me/?p=103
BTW I think I mistakenly deleted a friend request from you on FB, you can request again and I’ll accept.
I have been thinking about alternative notation and music visualization systems for a very long time. Your work has crystallized many of the thoughts I have had. Thank you so much for doing this.
– Dan
You’re welcome Dan, and thanks for the good word. Have you read “Harmonic Experience”?
This is truly incredible! It’s legitimately one of the most satisfying and spine-tinglingly wonderful songs I’ve ever heard, I can’t put it into words – it’s *sublime* – and it’s visually annotated so I can see *why* it sounds so good!… though I’m not at the level of my musical learning that I can actually understand really much of any of it yet, but I’m looking forward to be able to, haha.
You really did an incredible job on both the song and the video. <3
Though I wonder why this particular version doesn't seem to be on places like Spotify? The Spotify version has finger-snaps and stuff, and while that does sound good in its own way, this percussion-less version has a truly *dreamy* feel to it, no pun intended, and I'd love to be able to listen to this on the go!
– Daniel F.
Thanks Daniel! I really appreciate it. There are JI subtleties too, that don’t show up in the live versions, mostly because there’s an acoustic guitar involved and that throws the tuning into ET.
I do have yet another version on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/track/778OHtzOcLULuyktTQqPJr?si=4252ad5c5ea64122
And the video is listenable on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jA1C9VFqJKo
One of these days I’ve got to get more of my solo stuff on Spotify.
🙂 Gary
Hi Daniel, I just remastered this version (it’s subtle but will play better across different devices), and uploaded it to Distrokid. It will show up on Spotify and all the rest over the next few days. I listened to the audio-only again for the first time in a long time, and I can really hear the difference that the tuning makes. The parts where the harmonies visit the far northeast of the lattice are particularly tingly. Thanks for the welcome appreciation!