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CRYSTALUME There are ways to MAKE MUSIC and there are ways to PRODUCE MUSIC. There should here be made the distinction between making MUSIC and producing MUSIC. The thing that makes a MUSIC MAKING device (such as a violin) different from a MUSIC PRODUCING device (such as a MUSIC box) is that the MUSIC making device has an infinite potential, while the MUSIC producing device is limited to only what it has been designed or programmed to do. A MUSIC MAKING device is called an instrument and it is not dependent on its own capabilities for its repertoir of effects. A MUSIC PRODUCING device is not an instrument and relys solely on its own capabilities for its repertoir of effects. As any MUSICIAN will admit, the limit is not the instrument but the MUSICIAN playing the instrument. Think of it, how many different ways can four strings (as a Violin) be divided and vibrated in an infinite number of time lengths? Well, you can divide any string into an infinite number of pieces. Multiply that by four (strings) and you get infinity cubed. Then multiply that by infinity, for there are an infinite number of time lengths possible. So the mathmatical possibilities for a Violin would be infinity X infinity cubed! Which BTW would still be only infinity! (BTW, the little hat brim lazy 8 symbol that signifies infinity is called a "lemniscate") Now ask the same question of a device such as a MUSIC box. It will play one sequence in a given amount of time. The same way, the same everything. So the answer is once, which is nowhere near infinite! The whole reason for thinking the thought contained in the last two paragraphs is to make sure that it is understood that in order for a VUSIC instrument to be the equivalent of a MUSIC instrument, it would have to be equally infinite in its ability to produce an infinite number of visual effects or images. It must give control over the visually equivalent aspects of the AURAL to the VUSICIAN. There is a tendency among those who have taken an interest in the techniques used to play The Crystalume, and one of the first questions about generally asked : Is there any way to automate the function of The Crystalume? It has always been the forte' of The Crystalume that it was NOT automated. The VUSIC that comes out of The Crystalume is in no way DEPENDENT on the MUSIC, for it is not electrically, electronically, sonically, or mechanically connected to the audio portion of the program. This is not to say that it thus bears no relation to the SOUND. The VUSIC is connected to the MUSIC the way the MUSIC instruments are connected together in a band or an orchestra, and that is through the spirits of the MUSICIAN. The Bass is connected to the Drums and to the Guitar and to all the other instruments, but the connection is psychological/spiritual, not mechanical or electronic. Another concept about which a number of questions have been asked is about is the possibility of making it actuated from a Piano type keyboard. The reply that is normally given to that question is: It could probably be done. I have tried to conceive of how and have found that the technique that actually makes The Crystalume work is much too complex to be translated into something that could be actuated by a such a limited mechanism as a keyboard. Imagine a analogous situation being asked about another instrument. Could the Guitar be made to be actuated by a keyboard? The answer is probably yes, but why? The factors that one must be able to emulate/translate from being audible into be visible are discussed in the chapter called MUSIC=VUSIC. But for the sake of this exposition, we are going to use volume, tone, register, and rhythm,as examples of the components of MUSIC and analogize that the equal factors would be brightness, color, tint, and strobe, as the Synaesthetic equals of volume, tone, register, and rhythm. So how does one go about coming up with a device that will make it possible to visually emulate the audio portion of the program? Conceptually, one would have to understand the Synaesthetic correspondencies, either by having them as a quirk of one's mental processes and therefore felt intuitively, or one would have to gain and understanding of the Synaesthetic correspondencies by cultivating the feeling for form by watching and hearing it done either by one's self, or by watching some one else do it. The reality that has manifested is that the more one does it, the better one becomes at being able to emulate visually the SOUND of the AURAL stimuli. This is the truth of the old adage: "Practice, practice, practice." Having gotten the idea that there IS some kind of correlation between a note of SOUND and an image made of LIGHT clearly set in one's mind, the technology begins to reveal itself. First, there must be a LIGHTSOURCE. Note: (The Spindler Sauppe 1200 SLR Ultrabright using a BRN Tungston Halogen bulb has been a work-horse of the first order, that has never faltered in it operation. It is old and obsolete, but it puts out gobs of LIGHT and will do it for extended lengths of time). Any source of projected LIGHT can be used. Slide projectors are an obvious choice due to their availability and reliability. It is at the lens of the projector that the first control of the LIGHT takes place. The control that happens at this point is the function of increasing and decreasing the brilliance, which is the visual equivalent of the audio function of increasing and decreasing the volume. When the MUSIC gets loud, the VUSIC should get bright or brilliant. The brilliance should be consummate with the volume. To have hardly any brilliance while the SOUND is going at great volume is not Synaesthetic. By the same token, to have lots of LIGHT at at time when the SOUND is subdued, is also not Synaesthetic. Quiet = Dim, Loud = Bright, going from Quiet to Loud - going from Dim to Bright. The trick here is to do it in the same way and at the same rate as the audio, which implies a knowledge of the arrangement of the SOUND track. The second control of the LIGHT also takes place at the lens and that is the function of rhythm. While the rhythm is also a brightening and dimming of the image, it differs from the function of brilliance in the way that a rhythm in the MUSIC differs from the volume of the MUSIC. They are related, but rhythm is more persistent and volume is more ambient. It could be that there are quiet rhythms (the strobing of the LIGHT from Black to dim), loud rhythms (the strobing of the LIGHT from black to bright). A thing that MUSIC does is get progressively louder or softer. These first two functions of a LIGHT instrument: 1. The ability to regulate the brilliance, and 2. The ability to regulate the rate of brilliance regulation when combined serve to Synaesthetically emulate the rhythm of the MUSIC getting louder and softer. With these factors provided for, we must now deal with the MUSICAL factor of tone. Tones come in different notes. In Western MUSIC there are 12 notes in a chromatic scale, (A, A#, B, C, C#, D D# , E, F, F#, G, and G# ) Hues come in different colors. In VUSIC there are a number of various color/tone correspondencies, one of them is the: 12 notes in a chromatic spectrum, (Red, Red/Orange, Orange, Yellow/Orange, Yellow, Yellow/Green, Green, Blue/Green, Blue, Blue/Violet, Violet, and Red/Violet) With that correspondence made, let us return to the LIGHT of the instrument which we can modulate the brilliance and rate of and see how we can add color to the image. The first way to add color if one is using a slide projector is to do it with a filter or a color slide. This is then working with colored LIGHT instead of White LIGHT. Each way has its uses. Using White LIGHT is really the purest way. Having any thing in the system doing something automatically is taking control away from the Artist. This is not to say that one cannot be Artistic without complete control, but it does mean that one has to work within a permitted limit of restraint that would not otherwise be a factor. In MUSIC it would be the difference between hearing an Acoustic Guitar played unamplified compared to an Electric Guitar with a digital delay/echo effect. One can set the DD/E to modify the SOUND, but one is stuck with that SOUND. On the other hand, if one has only an Acoustic Guitar, one is stuck with that SOUND also. There are modifications that are used on MUSIC instruments that "color" the SOUND such as mutes on trumpets, and volins, etc., that could be analogized to the use of filters in the LIGHT path before it gets to the control of the VUSICIAN. Each has its use. So let us first explore the using of White LIGHT and then the using of colored LIGHT. In the instance of using White LIGHT, where could color come from? There are a number of possible sources. One is the insertion of a filter made of some sort made of colored glass, gel, or plastic which when placed between somewhere between the LIGHT source and the screen, will color the image. Another source of color is the refraction of the White LIGHT into a spectrum. This takes some kind of prismatic medium and is one of the major sources of the exquisite colors that The Crystalume is able to access. In the instance of using colored LIGHT, there would already be color coming out of the projector, but the insertion of a filter made of some sort of colored glass, gel, or plastic between the source of colored LIGHT and the screen would modify the color in ways that are quite rich and beautiful. A prismatic medium would also provide color that would not have the range that a spectrum made of White LIGHT would have but would none-the-less- produce a spectrum from the available LIGHT. Both of these techniques are available and are used. But there is more to it than that. The way the brilliance is controlled has a number of variations in technique. When this function is done in conjunction with the use of color filters as an integral part of the LIGHT limiting device, the effect is quite unique and the techniques used to accomplish this are the equivalents of the picks, and bows that are used on stringed instruments. The variety of technique with which this kind of component of the MUSIC making instrument system is limited only by the imagination of the VUSICIAN. In The Crystalume system, the equipment that is used to do the color addition is infinitely and totally in the hands of the VUSICIAN. How one does it is determined by the style that one wants to play. Alright , now we have strobe, brilliance, and hue accounted for, now we need to have control of the shape of the image which is the visual equivalent of the characteristic of the SOUND. To do the percussive part of the SOUND visually entails the producing of visual images which appear and disappear as quickly as a Drumbeat becomes audible and then goes to silence. If one analyzed the shape of the Attack, Sustain, Decay and Release (ADSR) of a Drum beat one would see that it has a fast Attack, no Sustain, quick Decay and quick Release. The visual equivalent is to go from Black to a visually equivalent brilliant color back to Black quickly. having made an image that would be basically round! (As this is being written, the question of: "Why round?" comes up. And my first inclination is to say: "Because I said so! Take my word for it!" But that doesn't answer it for me either. I happen to know that Drum beats are round. I play them as round. They look right when they are round. Round does all the things that a Drum beat does. All of which is true, but doesn't answer the question of why. Consider this: If one had to make a choice between a Drum and a Piccolo as having the visual image characteristic which was round as opposed to linear in shape, one would most certainly say that the characteristics of quick on and off (as with a Drum) as opposed to a sustained tone (as with a Piccolo) would give the quick on and off to both the Drum and the strobing round shaped image and the sustained tone to both the Piccolo and the linear shaped image.) But again, this is pretty much subjective. One can do it any way one wants. The ones that work are the ones that are most Synaesthetic and that cannot be faked. The next thing that has to happen to the image is for it to have placement which is a combination of factors. Placement includes not only where an image is on the screen, but also where it is going and what it is doing while it is where it is and is going to where it is going. MUSIC radiates into a three-dimensional space . Strictly speaking, the images should be made in three-dimensional space and LUMIC Arts such as fireworks are. But generally when VUSIC is spoken of, it is done on a two dimensional screen (for that is how it is displayed in the visual equivalent of the aural reproduction. (A bit of a side note here: Allison is working on a method of making 3-D VUSIC images. More about that as developments are made.) The speakers, out of which come the audio, are the audio equivalent of the TV screen. There will come a day when Holographic TV will make it possible to produce VUSIC in 3-D, but as of this writing, the making of VUSIC is pretty much limited to 2-D. With that concession made, let us consider the placement of an image in relationship to the SOUND. If the SOUND is going from quiet to loud, the image would go from dim to bright. If the SOUND is going from low pitched tones to high pitched tone, the progression of the color would be the visual equivalent. Low tones being Red, High tones being Violet. (As this is being written, the question of "Why low/Red and high/Violet? and my first inclination is to say: "Because I said so, take my word for it!". But that doesn't answer it for me either. In fact thinking about it now, it isn't even universally so. Newton said things like: "A is Red!" and Huygen said: "C is Red!". And though all of this is pretty subjective, the idea of low being Red is because of the correspondencies in the way that LIGHT and SOUND are correlated wave-length-wise. Red has the lowest frequencey and the longest waves of the visible spectrum. Violet has the highest frequency and the shortest waves of the visible spectrum. Low frequency SOUND should be accompanied by low frequency LIGHTl, and high frequency SOUND should be accompanied by high frequency LIGHT. That is the rational behind the statement that low tones are Red and high tones are Violet. But there is also another alternative to consider: We can hear frequencies from as low as 14 Hz and as high as 20,000 (this is not to say that all of us can do this, but there are those to whom that frequency range produces a sensory input and thus if we use these figures we can see how many octaves we can conceptually hear. It is done like this. Every time the frequency doubles, the tone will rise an octave. If you know this, then this is not in anyway remarkable, but I remember the first time that this was demonstrated to me. It boggled my mind to think that the intervals could each be divided into 12 sections and every twelfth note would be the same note but an octave up with exactly twice as many vibrations per second producing the SOUND. (For those of you familiar with the Guitar, the phenomenon known as "chimes", done by setting a string in motion with a two lobes instead of a single lobe vibratory motion is relative to the doubling the rate of the string vibration and produces an octave interval that is higher than it would be if the string were vibrating in a single lobe from one end of the string to the other.) So starting with a note that has a frequency of 14 Hz, 28 Hz would be one octave and so on so the progression goes like this:
Since we can optimally hear only to 22,000 Hz, somewhere in the middle of the eleventh octave, the SOUND would go ultra-sonic and become un-sensable. The reason for delineating the octaves like this is to correlate the frequency of the tone to the frequency of the light so that low frequency SOUND is Synaesthetically accompanied by low frequency LIGHT and high frequency SOUND is Synaesthetically accompanied by high frequency LIGHT thus: Low is Red, High is Violet. There is an anomoly here. We can hear 10-1/2 octaves, BUT...we can see only one spectrum. If we analogize the entire register of 10-1/2 octaves as one spectrum, we have a problem with the way that we arrive at octaves, which is by doubling frequencies. The problem is: One cannot double or half the frequency of any hue in the visual spectrum and have it remain visible. This has far reaching implications as far as MUSIC/VUSIC goes and here is why. It opens another way of correspondency in the philosophy of Synaesthetic equivalencies of component factors of SOUND and LIGHT. Here is the second view: We can hear 10-1/2 octaves of SOUND, each octave divided into 12 equal parts and each given an alphabetical name using only the first seven letters A-G and making up the difference between 7 and 12 with either sharps (#) or flats (b). We can see only one spectrum of LIGHT, which is divided into 12 equal parts and each given a name using only six names and making up the difference between 6 and 12 with combination names. Thus the correspondence of the visible spectrum to an audible octave, would go like this: C is Red, C# is Red/Orange, D is Orange, D# is Yellow/Orange, E is Yellow, F is Yellow/Green, F# is Green, G is Blue/Green, G# is Blue, A is Blue/Violet, A# is Violet , B is Red Violet and C (an octave up from the last C=Red note) is once again Red! But...this time with a difference! Starting at middle C which is pure Red, each octave up is tinted. Each octave down is shaded. Now what does this mean? Tint is the adding of White to a hue. Shading is the adding of Black to a hue. It doesn't matter whether one is mixing pigments or LIGHT, only the technique of accomplishing this would be different, the concept would be the same. Each octave down from middle C would be darker than the last and each octave up from middle C would be lighter than the last. Thus instead of high notes being Violet, high notes could be any color, but they would be tints of whatever color they were. Instead of low notes being Red, low notes could be any color, but they would be shades of whatever color they were. A note here: At this point in the development of VUSIC, it really doesn't make much difference which correspondency one uses, for each is only an element of a style. There are even other styles that are alternatives to the register/spectrum and note/hue correspondencies, which are discussed in the chapter on VUSIC. In the making of MUSIC especially for this medium, there has come to be a synthesis of the two methods. The correspondency has taken on a tertiary attribute. We can both correspond register to spectrum and and note to hue by integrating the following correspondencies. Let the shades of the low notes be added by dark warm colors. Let the tints of the high notes be added by LIGHT cool colors. So instead of adding Black to shade, one adds Red. Instead of adding White, one adds Lavender. The custom made SOUNDS have characteristics that makes possible greater exposition of these kinds of nuances which are the equivelances of the subtlteties of MUSIC. The result of this is a beautiful effect that is extremely Synaesthetic. The Crystalume was invented in 1967 by Allison. In the ensuing years, The Crystalume has developed into a sophisticatedly simple device that evidences the ability to be infinite. A description of its evolution is in the chapter called Allison Wonderland Concert Lightshow. What is here described is the physical arrangement of the VUSIC instrument called The Crysalume. Starting at the Left end is the projector. From the bulb in the projector, the LIGHT goes either through a color filter or not, it exits the projector through an f4.7 lens to an array of Soligor faceted lenses that are arranged in independently rotatable fittings. The LIGHT exits this array, traversing the Negative Zone. At the Right end of the Negative Zone the LIGHT goes through a Vexo/Convexo lens, exiting the lens, the LIGHT traverses the Positive Zone, where it hits the rear projection screen which is the Right end of The Crystalume. The description of what the LIGHT does as going from Left to Right is technically correct, but in actuality, the LIGHT travels from the rear to the front, which just happens to be Left to Right to the VUSICIAN playing The Crystalume. The manipulation of the LIGHT beam by the VUSICIAN takes place in the Negative Zone with the Left hand and in the Positive Zone with the Right hand. With the Left hand the in the Negative Zone, volume, volume rate (strobe, rhythm), color and the primary image placement is controlled. In the Negative Zone, LIGHT manipulating object that are moved toward the screen from the projector proceed from small to large. Conversely, an optically suited object in the positive goes from large to small when moved toward the screen from the lens separating the Negative Zone from the Positive Zone. If one considers each of the Zones as one would consider each of the strings on a Violin, then one could see that the Negative Zone and the Positive Zone have infinitely variable potential and that when manipulation takes place in both of them the possibilities are infinity to the second power. Infinity squared! Other things take place in response to the manipulation that is taking place in the Negative and Positive Zones. LIGHT from the far side of the Negative Zone can be directed to the near side of the Positive Zone. and LIGHT from the near side of the Negative Zone can be directed to the far side of the Positive Zone. Conceptually, the usable Zone of LIGHT, is shaped like an cone in the Negative Zone and an hour glass with the pinched part in the middle of the Positive Zone, the change taking place at the lens separating the Negative from the Positive Zone. The things that actually do the handling of the LIGHT are the instrument arrays that are comprised of lenses, faceted lenses, faceted balls, faceted ovids, freeform glass shapes, glass rods, tubes, apertures, cut glass plates, and almost anything that is transparent, translucent, reflective, refractive, diffractive or diffusive. Everything does something and it is not the image that counts. It is how it is handled that is the mark of a master virtuoso VUSICIAN. Various combination of optical objects produce extremely complex images with more control than one can, without a great deal of practice, handle. The more of the controls that one can handle simultaneously is a mark of one's virtuosity. For example, a Violinist who can control only the volume of what he is playing is only half as virtuoso as the Violinist who can control the pitch and volume of what he is playing. This example is pretty simplistic, but multiply the number of factors, for which a world-class violinist must compensate, and you see the truth of the statement that the more factors or components of the MUSIC that the MUSICIAN is able to control simultaneously, the more virtuoso he is. I have always found that an explanation of this sort is easily understood if one know what is being talked about. but that if one does not know what is being discussed the description is mostly unintelligible. I sometimes fear that this may be the case with this present description. If I read it from the view point of knowing what I am talking about, it makes perfectly good sense. I try to read it from the viewpoint of someone who knows nothing about it and I find that I cannot!
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