Color organ
Encyclopedia
The term color organ refers to a tradition of mechanical (18th century), then electromechanical, devices built to represent sound or to accompany music in a visual medium—by any number of means. In the early 20th century, a silent color organ tradition (Lumia) developed. In the 60s and 70s, the term 'color organ' became popularly associated with electronic devices that responded to their music inputs with light show
s [Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ekGIv9uwj8] . The term 'light organ
' is increasingly being used for these devices; allowing 'color organ' to reassume its original meaning.
Light show
Light show may refer to:*Aaron Landes* Laser lighting display * Liquid light shows* Christmas lights* Meteor shower* Wizards in Winter Christmas light show...
s [Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ekGIv9uwj8] . The term 'light organ
Light organ
A light organ is an electronic device which automatically converts an audio signal such as music into rhythmic light effects. In the 1970s, light organs were a popular lighting effect used in discotheques and dance parties...
' is increasingly being used for these devices; allowing 'color organ' to reassume its original meaning.
Chronology of the idea and its various incarnations
The dream of creating a visual music comparable to auditory music found its fulfillment in animated abstract films by artists such as Oskar FischingerOskar FischingerOskar Fischinger was a German-American abstract animator, filmmaker, and painter. He made over 50 short animated films, and painted c. 800 canvases, many of which are in museums, galleries and collections worldwide. Among his film works is Motion Painting No. 1 , which is now listed on the...
, Len LyeLen LyeLen Lye, born Leonard Charles Huia Lye , was a Christchurch, New Zealand-born artist known primarily for his experimental films and kinetic sculpture. His films are held in archives such as the New Zealand Film Archive, British Film Institute, Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and the Pacific...
and Norman McLarenNorman McLarenNorman McLaren, CC, CQ was a Scottish-born Canadian animator and film director known for his work for the National Film Board of Canada...
; but long before them, many people built instruments, usually called 'color organs,' that would display modulated colored light in some kind of fluid fashion comparable to music. – William MoritzWilliam MoritzWilliam Moritz , film historian, specialized in visual music and experimental animation. His principal published works concerned abstract filmmaker and painter Oskar Fischinger...
- In 1590, Gregorio Comanini described an invention by the Mannerist painter Arcimboldo of a system for creating color-music, based on apparent luminosity (light-dark contrast) instead of hue.
- In 1725, French Jesuit monk Louis Bertrand CastelLouis Bertrand CastelLouis Bertrand Castel was a French mathematician born in Montpellier, and entered the order of the Jesuits in 1703. Having studied literature, he afterwards devoted himself entirely to mathematics and natural philosophy...
proposed the idea of Clavecin pour les yeux (Ocular Harpsichord). In the 1740s German composer TelemannGeorg Philipp TelemannGeorg Philipp Telemann was a German Baroque composer and multi-instrumentalist. Almost completely self-taught in music, he became a composer against his family's wishes. After studying in Magdeburg, Zellerfeld, and Hildesheim, Telemann entered the University of Leipzig to study law, but eventually...
went to FranceFranceThe French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
to see it, composed some pieces for it and wrote a book about it. It had 60 small colored glass panes, each with a curtain that opened when a key was struck. In about 1742, Castel proposed the clavecin oculaire (a light organ) as an instrument to produce both sound and the 'proper' light colors.
- In 1743, Johann Gottlob Krüger, a professor at the University of Hall, proposed his own version of Castel's ocular harpsichord.
- In 1816, Sir David Brewster proposed the KaleidoscopeKaleidoscopeA kaleidoscope is a circle of mirrors containing loose, colored objects such as beads or pebbles and bits of glass. As the viewer looks into one end, light entering the other end creates a colorful pattern, due to the reflection off the mirrors...
as a form of visual-music that became immediately popular.
- In 1877, US artist, inventor Bainbridge Bishop gets a patent for his first Color Organ. The instruments were lighted attachments designed for pipe organs that could project colored lights onto a screen in synchronization with musical performance. Bishop built three of the instruments; each was destroyed in a fire, including one in the home of P. T. BarnumP. T. BarnumPhineas Taylor Barnum was an American showman, businessman, scam artist and entertainer, remembered for promoting celebrated hoaxes and for founding the circus that became the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus....
.
- In 1893 ( was filed that year and granted in 1895), British painter Alexander Wallace Rimington invented the Clavier à lumièresClavier à lumièresThe clavier à lumières , or tastiéra per luce, as it appears in the score, was a musical instrument invented by Alexander Scriabin for use in his work Prometheus: Poem of Fire. However, only one version of this instrument was constructed, for the performance of Prometheus: Poem of Fire in New York...
. Rimington's Colour Organ attracted much attention, including that of Richard WagnerRichard WagnerWilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, theatre director, philosopher, music theorist, poet, essayist and writer primarily known for his operas...
and Sir George GroveGeorge GroveSir George Grove, CB was an English writer on music, known as the founding editor of Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians....
. It has been incorrectly claimed that his device formed the basis of the moving lights that accompanied the New YorkNew YorkNew York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
premiere of Alexander ScriabinAlexander ScriabinAlexander Nikolayevich Scriabin was a Russian composer and pianist who initially developed a lyrical and idiosyncratic tonal language inspired by the music of Frédéric Chopin. Quite independent of the innovations of Arnold Schoenberg, Scriabin developed an increasingly atonal musical system,...
's synaestheticSynesthesiaSynesthesia , from the ancient Greek , "together," and , "sensation," is a neurologically based condition in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive pathway leads to automatic, involuntary experiences in a second sensory or cognitive pathway...
symphony Prometheus: The Poem of FirePrometheus: Poem of FirePrometheus: The Poem of Fire, Op. 60 , is a symphonic work by the Russian composer Alexander Scriabin for piano, orchestra, optional choir, and clavier à lumières or "Chromola" . However, the clavier à lumières is rarely featured in the performance of the piece, including performances during...
in 1915.
- In a 1916 art manifestoArt manifestoThe art manifesto has been a recurrent feature associated with the avant-garde in Modernism. Art manifestos are mostly extreme in their rhetoric and intended for shock value to achieve a revolutionary effect. They often address wider issues, such as the political system...
, the Italian Futurists Arnaldo Ginna and Bruno Corra described their experiments with "color organ" projection in 1909. They also painted nine abstract films, now lost.
- In 1916, the Russian Futurist Painter Vladimir Baranoff Rossiné premiered the Optophonic PianoOptophonic PianoThe Optophonic Piano is an electronic optical instrument created by the Russian Futurist painter Vladimir Baranoff Rossiné.Vladimir Baranoff Rossiné started working on the instrument in 1916. He performed with it at many events and places, including the Bolshoi Theatre...
at his one-man exhibition in Kristiana (Oslo, Norway).
- In 1918, American concert pianist Mary Hallock-GreenewaltMary Hallock-GreenewaltMary Elizabeth Hallock-Greenewalt was an inventor and pianist who performed with the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh symphonies as a soloist...
created an instrument she called the Sarabet. Also an inventor, she patented nine inventions related to her instrument, including the rheostat.
- In 1921, Arthur C. Vinageras proposed the Chromopiano, an instrument resembling and played like a grand piano, but designed to project "chords" composed from colored lights.
- In the 1920s, Danish-born Thomas WilfredThomas WilfredThomas Wilfred born Richard Edgar Løvstrom, was a musician and inventor. He is best known for his visual music he named lumia and his designs for color organs called Clavilux...
created the Clavilux, http://www.gis.net/~scatt/clavilux/clavilux.html a color organ, ultimately patenting seven versions. By 1930, he had produced 16 "Home Clavilux" units. Glass disks bearing art were sold with these "Clavilux Juniors." Wilfred coined the word lumiaLumiaLumia is the term coined by 20th Century Artist Thomas Wilfred to refer to art created from light.Lumia as conceived, was a self contained and silent art, not to be combined with music or dance...
to describe the art. Significantly, Wilfred's instruments were designed to project colored imagery, not just fields of colored light as with earlier instruments.
- In 1925, Hungarian composer Alexander LaszloAlexander Laszlo (composer)Alexander Laszlo was an Hungarian-American pianist, musical composer, arranger and inventor....
wrote a text called Color-Light-Music ; Laszlo toured Europe with a color organ.
- In Germany, from the late 1920s-early 1930s, several color organs were demonstrated at a series of Color Music Congresses. Hirshfeld-Mack performed his Farbenlichtspiel color organ at these Congresses and at several other festivals and events in Germany. He had developed this color organ at the Weimar Bauhaus school, with Kurt Schwerdtfeger.
- The 1939 London Daily Mail Ideal Home Exhibition featured a "72-way Light Console and Compton Organ for Colour Music", as well as a 70 feet, 230 kW "Kaleidakon" tower. http://www.strandarchive.co.uk/history/chronology.html
- From 1935 -77, Charles Dockum built a series of Mobilcolor Projectors, his versions of silent color organs. Documentation and history are online at CVM. Some 16mm films exist of his performances and the operation of the Mobilcolor.
- In 1950, Oskar FischingerOskar FischingerOskar Fischinger was a German-American abstract animator, filmmaker, and painter. He made over 50 short animated films, and painted c. 800 canvases, many of which are in museums, galleries and collections worldwide. Among his film works is Motion Painting No. 1 , which is now listed on the...
created the Lumigraph that produced imagery by pressing objects/hands into a rubberized screen that would protrude into colored light. The imagery of this device was manually generated, and was performed with various accompanying music. It required two people to operate: one to make changes to colors, the other to manipulate the screen. Fischinger performed the Lumigraph in Los Angeles and San Francisco in the 1950s. The Lumigraph was licensed by the producers of the 1964 sci-fi film, The Time TravelersThe Time Travelers (1964 film)The Time Travelers is a science fiction film directed by B-movie director Ib Melchior that inspired the 1966 TV series The Time Tunnel as well as the 1967 remake Journey to the Center of Time...
. The Lumigraph does not have a keyboard, and does not generate music.
Further study
- California Institute of the Arts scholar William MoritzWilliam MoritzWilliam Moritz , film historian, specialized in visual music and experimental animation. His principal published works concerned abstract filmmaker and painter Oskar Fischinger...
has documented color organs as a form of Visual musicVisual musicVisual music, sometimes called "colour music," refers to the use of musical structures in visual imagery, which can also include silent films or silent Lumia work. It also refers to methods or devices which can translate sounds or music into a related visual presentation...
, particularly as a precursor to Visual Music cinemaFilmA film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
. His papers and original research are in the collection of the Center for Visual Music in Los Angeles, which also has other historical color organ papers and resources.
See also
- CymaticsCymaticsCymatics is the study of visible sound and vibration, a subset of modal phenomena. Typically the surface of a plate, diaphragm, or membrane is vibrated, and regions of maximum and minimum displacement are made visible in a thin coating of particles, paste, or liquid...
- Visual musicVisual musicVisual music, sometimes called "colour music," refers to the use of musical structures in visual imagery, which can also include silent films or silent Lumia work. It also refers to methods or devices which can translate sounds or music into a related visual presentation...
- Laser harpLaser harpA laser harp is an electronic musical instrument consisting of several laser beams to be blocked, in analogy with the plucking of the strings of a harp, in order to produce sounds. It was invented by Bernard Szajner and popularized by Jean Michel Jarre, and has been a high profile feature of...
- New Epoch Notation Painting
- Light organLight organA light organ is an electronic device which automatically converts an audio signal such as music into rhythmic light effects. In the 1970s, light organs were a popular lighting effect used in discotheques and dance parties...
- an electronic device which automatically converts an audio signal into rhythmic light effects, which was popular in 1970s discotheques.