What Does Your Name Sound Like?

Chris Pirillo — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 08:55:57 +0000

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This is one of the coolest things I’ve seen in awhile. I typed in my name, and chose a sound effect. I could then hear what my name sounds like using sounds other than a human speaking voice. If you go over to P22, you can turn your text into music.

The P22 Music Composition Font was proposed in 1997 to the John Cage Trust as an accompaniment to the John Cage text font based on the handwriting of the composer. The idea was basic and simple-every letter of the alphabet was assigned to a note on a scale. This would allow for any text to be converted into musical notation.

The font used in the P22 MTCG is a basic version that closely follows the initial Cage inspired idea. Each letter, number and punctuation mark is assigned a note on the C major scale. When the user generates their composition the same substitutions are applied to their text that the eventually released Opentype font performs.

The P22 Music Text Composition Generator allows any text to be converted into a musical composition. This composition is displayed in musical notation and simultaneously generated as a midi file.

This is really interesting, and a lot of fun. Reading the history is very cool, and something I honestly enjoyed learning about. Of course, I can’t stop playing around and making music out of text! Try it out for yourself, and see how your name sounds.

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What Does Your Name Sound Like?

Chris Pirillo » p22

What Does Your Name Sound Like?