Uploaded July 2017 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Marching Forward: A Musical Interpretation of Color (using Excel)
In an unprecedented international collaboration, Dutch programmer and artist Henriette Hamer [https://www.sledgehammer-productions.nl] uses Excel to musically map U.S. artist Wendy Wallace’s “Marching Forward #1” [https://wendywallaceart.com].
The artwork was first reduced to 100x79 pixels. The pixel RGB values were converted to pitch (R/G/B =0 -- C2; R/G/B = 255 -- C6), and each pixel was mapped moving right to left, left to right, etc. starting in the right upper corner. Images of each pixel and its RGB-components as well as the musical score were created using Excel. All was combined in a video editor (as Excel is not really the best musician).
“I've been fascinated, hunted almost, by the question "how does a picture sound?"." notes Ms. Hamer, "I've since been looking for images that might sound nice. When I saw paintings of Wendy I immediately felt the need to 'make them sound'. How, I had no idea, yet."
Ms. Hamer on the creative process that followed: "Sound can be defined by pitch, duration, volume, instrument. An image has colour (RGB or CMYB), a pixel has position (x, y). I apply various methods to translate image parameters to sound parameters. I create a score and the visuals to go with it using Excel. For the visuals the image parameters are interpreted in an ever changing Excel graph."
“When Henriette first came to me with this idea, I was so excited. It is amazing to see technology used in this way. Not only is it tremendous to interpret a visual piece of art into an auditory one, but this kind of tracking really illustrates all of the nuances of color in a hand-painted piece,” notes Ms. Wallace.
Music copyright Henriette Hamer.
Original artwork copyright Wendy Wallace.
All rights reserved.
https://www.sledgehammer-productions.nl
wendywallaceart.com
Marching Forward: A Musical Interpretation of Color (using Excel)
In an unprecedented international collaboration, Dutch programmer and artist Henriette Hamer [https://www.sledgehammer-productions.nl] uses Excel to musically map U.S. artist Wendy Wallace’s “Marching Forward #1” [https://wendywallaceart.com].
The artwork was first reduced to 100x79 pixels. The pixel RGB values were converted to pitch (R/G/B =0 -- C2; R/G/B = 255 -- C6), and each pixel was mapped moving right to left, left to right, etc. starting in the right upper corner. Images of each pixel and its RGB-components as well as the musical score were created using Excel. All was combined in a video editor (as Excel is not really the best musician).
“I've been fascinated, hunted almost, by the question "how does a picture sound?"." notes Ms. Hamer, "I've since been looking for images that might sound nice. When I saw paintings of Wendy I immediately felt the need to 'make them sound'. How, I had no idea, yet."
Ms. Hamer on the creative process that followed: "Sound can be defined by pitch, duration, volume, instrument. An image has colour (RGB or CMYB), a pixel has position (x, y). I apply various methods to translate image parameters to sound parameters. I create a score and the visuals to go with it using Excel. For the visuals the image parameters are interpreted in an ever changing Excel graph."
“When Henriette first came to me with this idea, I was so excited. It is amazing to see technology used in this way. Not only is it tremendous to interpret a visual piece of art into an auditory one, but this kind of tracking really illustrates all of the nuances of color in a hand-painted piece,” notes Ms. Wallace.
Music copyright Henriette Hamer.
Original artwork copyright Wendy Wallace.
All rights reserved.
https://www.sledgehammer-productions.nl
wendywallaceart.com
