Swan Lake – Zeno Music Visualiser

This is the Waltz from Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake suite, rendered through the Zeno music visualiser.

This is an entirely generative/audio reactive animation, i.e. no keyframing or manual input or editing. Programmed using the Processing language.

I had to tweak a little the audio frequency selections – the Bodysnatchers setup didn’t translate well.  The Radiohead track basically has two volumes – loud, and very loud.  Orchestral pieces tend to have a vast dynamic range and more subtlety.  Ideally I could have written a bit of code to automate this, but there’s a certain artistic sensibility and enjoyment involved when choosing which sounds will affect which bits of the animation, which leads me to think visualisers of the future could be more customisable by the user, as option though.

When I was watching this back, Disney’s Fantasia popped into my head.  It’s kind of obvious now that I think about it, perhaps it’s all been a subconscious desire to do my own Fantasia 🙂 mmmm now there’s a thought…