Circle of Fifths Series

The image above shows two works from a larger series based on the circle of fifths.  (left) traditional circle of fifths (right) non-traditional square of fifths.  ;)   They are not on display at this time.  

The circle of fifths organizes pitches in a sequence of perfect fifths, generally shown as a circle with the pitches (and their corresponding keys) in clockwise order. It can be viewed in a counterclockwise direction as a circle of fourths. Harmonic progressions in Western music commonly use adjacent keys in this system, making it a useful reference for musical composition and harmony.  For more information on the circle of fifths visit: wikipedia.org/wiki/Circle_of_fifths 

The video above is based on the color chart below.  You will first hear the 7 notes of the diatonic scale presented in order of the circle of fifths.  As each note rings, the corresponding color/ thread spool rises up to a specific height based on hertz.    The thread spool animations (and there are more of them) light-heartedly connect the new works to my series of thread spool installations I created over the years.   LINK TO THREAD SPOOL WORKS

The Circle of Fifths HD metal print rendering.  It starts at the upper left and reads like a book.  The reference to Damian Hirst is intentional but his work was not the inspiration for the aesthetic.  Notes just feel round to me and once I laid them out in a grid, I thought of his work and decided to lean into it in a wink-wink kind of way.

Installation view: Circle of Fifths and Square of Fifths, part of a larger series of works

Art that Bridges the Universal Languages of Music, Math, and Color

In the time of the Ancient Greeks, music was not seen as an art but rather as a quantitative science that was used as a mathematical and philosophical description of how the universe was perceived to be constructed.