discrete Fourier transform

This paper presents a web application for visualizing the tonality of a piece of music—the organization of its chords and scales—at a high level of abstraction and with coordinated playback.

In my presentation, I will briefly introduce the underlying theoretical work followed by a tutorial on how to use the app for music analysis.

We introduce wavescapes, a novel visualization method for tonal hierarchies that combines the visual representation of keyscapes with music analysis based on the discrete Fourier transformation (DFT) and illustrate it by analyzing compositions by Josquin, Bach, Liszt, Chopin, Scriabin, Webern, Coltrane, and Ligeti.

This project aims at bridging the gap between mathematical music theory and music enthusiasts. In recent years, music theorists have discovered that the Discrete Fourier Transform (DFT) can be used to analyze the pitch-class content of pieces of music, for instance to compare the tonal organization of different pieces.