A Dramatic New Technology

         The Animated Spectrograms you have just seen represent a vibrant new tool for collegiate music instruction.  As you can see, these computer-generated graphs create a streaming image of the musical process as it develops within the flow of time.  This visualization is so precise and so literal that it can be perceived and followed by musicians and non-musicians alike, even at first glance.

           Most importantly, these streaming spectrograms enable you to focus your students’ attention on the musical impulse at its exact moment of inception. This pinpoint focus can spark their imagination, sharpen their response and increase their involvement in the music as it unfolds directly in front of their eyes.  

A “Sonic Footprint”

            Because they create a visual image of what’s actually happening in the sonic environment, these spectrograms can help your students probe the mysteries of some of music’s most intriguing phenomena.  Techniques such as vibrato, portamento, rubato and glissando can be analyzed as they occur within a specific musical context.

            When couched within the tonal-vector staff your students can watch the more active tones (such as the leading tone) bend into the central tones, and they can even observe the more exotic microtones such as the neutral 3rd and the sitar microtones weave within and around the mediant, dominant and tonic of the key.

Stylistic Analysis

           These spectrograms are particularly useful in understanding styles of music that cannot be represented in standard notation.   Genres such as world music, electronic music, spectral music and polystylism can now be analyzed in terms of their specific dynamic qualities and characteristics.

            And since this new visual “language” is readily apparent to both novice music lovers and musicians, it can be effectively used in introductory appreciation classes and advanced music theory courses.