John Whitney’s Digital Harmony Wheels

March 10th, 2008

Some enterprising scripters have animated the motion graphics described by John Whitney in his book Digital Harmony. No, it didn’t mean anything to me either. But the site says:

In three minutes, the largest dot will travel around the circle once, the next largest dot will travel around the circle twice, the next largest dot three times, and so on.
The dots are arranged to trigger notes on a chromatic scale when they pass the line

The effect is very pleasant and quite mesmerising. I’m sure there are some high level mathematics going on here, I just wish I was smart enough to understand what they were. The site has many variations of scale and harmony, all of which are interesting and delightfully musical. Fascinating stuff!

Entry Filed under: General

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