In a few weeks I will be presenting samples of my visualization work at an International Conference on Music Perception and Cognition in Seoul, Korea. In preparation I have been showing the work to some acquaintances.
Their reactions make clear to me that the most important example I will show is also perhaps the most innocent: that of an eight-year-old boy depicting the tones of a Bartok melody he was having trouble reading. It is a graphic depiction not just of the melody, but of his exuberance when at last he "got" it.
Why is it important? Because, after 17 years the boy is still studying with me. I describe our work together from time to time on this blog. He is a professional computer animator. A visual intelligence.
Though I cannot prove it scientifically, my guess is that having affirmed the validity of visual thinking in relation to music at a very early stage of learning permits us, working together, to find parallels between the inner workings of his mind and Beethoven's compositional process, the current subject of our work together.
