"On Every Street" by Mark Knopfler

ABOUT THE WORK This work has 8 musical notes conveyed as colors. The 8 notes/ objects are intended to look like miniature 45 records.  Using color to link musical notes, note names (A-B-C) and intervals (1-2-3) makes it possible to play the notes by referencing the colors of the record labels.  

This work is based on my favorite riff by Mark Knopfler from the song On Every Street. If you look closely, you can see the Kalimba instrument has engravings of interval numbers and note letters.  The riff notes start with at the top and moves clockwise.

This work translates SOUND WAVES (music) to COLORS  (light waves) to NUMBERS (intervals) or LETTERS (note names) or back to SOUND WAVES (music)

On Every Street, 2024, 30 x 30 inches, 8 etched CDs with labels that reference 45 records installed directly onto the wall

Video of Takoda playing this Mark Knopfler riff on sound pods

In the video you will hear me sing numbers at pitches that correspond with the sound pod recordings. When Takoda hears me sing a number, he targets the corresponding sound pod which plays a recording of me singing that number. That's why you hear each number being sung twice.

When Takoda targets the correct pod, I give him a treat. Using food rewards minimizes vocalizations but it also shifts his focus away from looking at the sound pods. But when I watch the video it looks like he knows where they are without looking, at least most of the time.

We built up to this level over the course of two to three months. We starting with a single pod, then two pods, then pods etc. I have many videos of Takoda working alone and he became pretty accurate but this is the only time he played the entire 8 note riff without a single mistake.

Thread spool animation of riff by Mark Knopfler from the song On Every Street. More thread spool animations to come.

The color chart above contains interval numbers and note names/ letters that correspond to the colors of the 7 note diatonic scale 1-2-3-4-5-6-7.  Five more colors are added in between to represent the sharps and flats of the 12 note chromatic scale.

Using color to link musical notes, numbers (1-2-3) and letters (A-B-C) is easy to learn because the human brain is already hard wired to make connections between the different senses. Color, sound, number, letter connections are just not well developed in most people (except for people who have Synesthesia).

Think about the experience of hearing sounds and seeing imagery "in the real world" or "in your mind's eye." Our brains process the full range of sensory information as a unified, singular experience.   The idea for this new series of work came from the surprising speed in which my brain connected musical notes and interval numbers when I started color coding sheet music and guitar charts. The connections happened so quickly and effortlessly I knew it wasn't "Devorah" thing. It was a "brain" thing. This realization was the inspiration for this new series of art.

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.