A note is not a tone

I often come across texts that confuse the concepts of notes and tones. Thus this little blog post that I can refer people when explaining the difference. While the terms “note” and “tone” may be used interchangeably in casual conversation, they have distinct meanings from a music theoretical perspective: Note: A note refers to a symbol in musical notation that tells the musician which pitch to play and for how long. Notes are represented by symbols like whole notes, half notes, quarter notes, etc., and they can also indicate dynamics (loudness), articulation, and other musical qualities. ...

July 5, 2023 · 1 min · 171 words · ARJ

Horizontal and Vertical Averaging is not the same

For my year-long StillStanding project I am generating videograms for all the scenes. Since there is not much motion in these 10-minute recordings, they typically look like stripes. Looking at today’s recording of an unspectacular hotel room in Kongsberg, I noticed how different the horizontal and vertical videogram look: It is fascinating how two averages of the same video recording can be so different. The explanation is simple; they are based on averaging in two different dimensions (horizontal and vertical). Still, it is a good reminder that taking an average of anything gives only one perspective.

July 5, 2023 · 1 min · 96 words · ARJ