There was once an artist who saw the world differently. To others, music was a sequence—one chord leading to the next, following rules passed down for centuries. But to this artist, harmony wasn’t a road—it was a shape.
One day, while studying a tetrahedron, they had a revelation:
What if harmony could be explored like a geometric object?
The artist began to think of polytonality—where multiple key centers coexist—as viewing a shape from different angles. Just as rotating a cube reveals different perspectives, shifting tonal centers could reframe harmony without destroying its structure. The artist discovered symmetrical scales, scales divided the octave equally, just as regular polygons divide space. These scales felt weightless, floating, directionless, much like a spinning polyhedron that never settles on a single face.
But the real breakthrough came when they linked geometric transformations to musical modulations. Rotating a shape was like transposing a chord cycle. Projecting it onto a plane was like reducing a dense harmony into a simpler structure. Slicing through it was like changing timbre or rhythm—cutting through sound the way a plane cuts through a solid object.
Suddenly, music wasn’t just about moving forward—it was about navigating space. The musician realized that chords weren’t just stacked notes—they were dimensions to explore. By understanding the structure of sound the way mathematicians understood shapes, they could compose not just melodies and chords, but entire harmonic landscapes.
Their music became a universe of interconnected spaces, where harmony wasn’t just played—it was discovered.
Should I call this idea development?
As I uploaded videos and used them to refine my ideas, I realized that this approach actually works. Some things that couldn’t be solved just through theoretical explanations are now being resolved. So, this time, I want to talk about three-dimensional forms geometry.
I’m photographer BHANG Young Moon, and I’m also a photographer who wants to explore music.
In a previous video, when I expressed colors as music, I mentioned that my foundational ideas came from Olivier Messiaen’s theories and works, along with related references. However, when it comes to three-dimensional forms, the idea is much closer to my original concept.
I’ve also prepared some references to show the basic flow of thought behind this, so let’s get into it.
The idea of expressing three-dimensional forms originates from my work Exploring Polyhedron, a photographic series that I started in 2018 and completed in early 2019. This project was about exploring the relationship between music and geometry.
For this video, I’m focusing on the tetrahedron, one of the five Platonic solids, which is commonly known as a regular polyhedron. I want to connect it to my current ideas.
One of the techniques I use is interval-based voicing, a method I personally love. The guitarist Allan Holdsworth frequently used this approach(R.I.P).
For expressing the tetrahedron musically, I use augmented chords to capture its symmetry in space. Since augmented chords have evenly spaced intervals, they naturally convey a sense of rotation and cyclic motion.
For improvisation, I draw inspiration from John Coltrane’s approach. IT'S INEVITABLE.
This seems like a natural connection because Coltrane’s harmonic approach—as seen in Giant Steps and Countdown—involves symmetrical key movements that form a geometric structure within music.
So, by applying the tetrahedron-based concept here, I use the three vertices of an equilateral triangle as a foundation. Placing three augmented chords at these points creates a structure with equal spacing.
Depending on the direction of movement—whether forward or reverse—the intervals remain consistent. This made me think of using the diminished whole-tone scale(altered dominant scale) as a framework. Since the whole-tone scale consists of evenly spaced notes, it reinforces this symmetry.
So, this was a brief summary of my thought process on expressing visual art as music—specifically, how I can translate colors and three-dimensional forms into sound. I believe that through this process, I can develop a fusion-based artistic expression—a kind of interdisciplinary art form. This is just the beginning. As I continue creating pieces that transform visual art into music, I’ll be sure to share updates with you.
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