Harmonic Dreamweaver
For this project, I decided to make an interactive music generator that would work with an external camera like a webcam. The project file consists of 2 max patch files:
The Camera Module
A Pattern recognizer Module
The camera module consists of functionalities that make use of the webcam. It captures the user's gestures and does some computations for detecting motion within the view field. The view field of the webcam is divided into different zones. When the user moves around in front of the webcam, the different zones get triggered based on where the motion is detected. Each of the zones has a keyboard module with a specific Chord major scale attached to the patcher.
There are 4 internal keyboard patches:
C major scale generator
D major scale generator
E major scale generator
F major scale generator
The four major scale generators each have a range of built-in functionalities. To develop these modules, I conducted extensive research into music theory, including chords and scales. Once I grasped these concepts, I had to determine how to apply them to my project. For the C major keyboard module, I used the theory of diatonic harmonics, but I opted not to use this approach for the other major scale modules to keep things more innovative and unconventional.
After implementing the harmonics logic and the MIDI kslider interpreter, I replicated this process for each of the scales. This involved mapping out the scales and creating logic to randomly adjust MIDI values up or down based on the user-triggered zones.