Project Metamorphosis: Designing a Dynamic Framework for Converting Musical Compositions into Paintings

Abstract

The authors present an automated, rule-based system to convert piano compositions into paintings. Using a color-note association scale presented by Edward Maryon in his book Marcotone (1919), which correlates 12-tone scale with 12 hues of the color circle, the authors present a simple approach for extracting colors associated with each note played in a piano composition. The authors also describe the color extraction and art generation process in detail, as well as the process to create ‘moving art,’ which imitates the progression of a musical piece in real time. They share and discuss artworks generated for four famous piano compositions.