3rd Place

Surprise Symphony

For this project, I explored the symbols of western music notation. I am really interested in combining music and design as I am studying musical notation for my design thesis project here at UIC. I changed and distorted the symbols to emphasize the different elements of the composition, both visual and auditory. The piece I analyzed was Haydn’s Symphony No. 94, more commonly know as the Surprise Symphony. When I change the various elements of the layered composition, the composition become less readable and more expressive. The idea is to be able to understand parts of the music without necessarily being able to read the notes. I wanted to show the scale of the poster so I took a picture with myself as the scale.