Crystal singing bowl notes ~~~> colors
My friend David measured the Hz of my crystal singing bowls for a project we are working on. So now I have a way to translate them into color, even if it is not through Max but through this website which takes the Hz of the sounds and matches them to the Thz color/frequency in light... I plan to make a chord of a few bowls at once that I would play along to, maybe in in two parts. 5 minutes isn't as long as this piece would be, I think it would be something more like 15 minutes to 20 max...but it will be a study in this idea! It also seems that the relationship is not totally direct; it is somehow translating the frequency of both sound and light into the same thing, though the waves are quite different. However it is some way to make a scientific relationship and I think will be interesting to work with.
Converting Sound to Color
The code above converts the frequency of sound to a frequency of light by doubling the sound frenency (going up one octave each time) until it reaches a frequency in the range of 400–800 THz (400,000,000,000,000 – 800,000,000,000,000 Hz).
That frequency is then converted into a wavelength of light, using the formula:
wavelength = speedOfLight / frequency
The speed of light that is used is the observed speed of light in a vacuum (299,792,458 m/sec).
I believe that this is a reasonable approach, even though we are not playing these sounds in a vacuum. The code for rendering colors (see below) is based on this same constant for speed of light; When looking at resonance, I believe that it is really the frequency of the sound and light that we want to match, not the wavelength.
Source
C crystal singing bowl = Blue #0000ff
D crystal singing bowl = Dark Red #bf0000
E bowl =
F crystal singing bowl = Blue #00dbff
G crystal singing bowl = Purple #540084
Ab/G# Crystal singing bowl = #bf0000 (same as C ??)
And second reading... = #ffad00
B Crystal Singing Bell (handle now broken but can be chimed) = #ffc700
Result:
It looks like every color of the rainbow is represented! I have yet to measure the newest bowl I got, and can only use the broken bowl I have as a bell (cannot "bowl" it anymore). I will plan to somehow gang them up next to each other and play along with them so that it is synchronized. It will be choreographed vs being triggered by sensors, but I think the idea of this came from thinking about doing it the other way around. More soon...