Not all people experience the world in the same way. A condition known as synesthesia, for instance, is a cognitive phenomenon in which one sensory stimulant causes the stimulation of another, unrelated sense. One form of synesthesia that individuals with this condition (known as synesthetes) experience is seeing colors when hearing music. This inexplicable cognitive connection has long intrigued many people, including engineer and content creator He Shijie of HTX Studio. In an effort to visualize the phenomenon, He set out to create a “magical piano” that showed music as individual bursts of color as the instrument’s keys are hit.
Though He was inspired by CGI videos of pianos blasting lights as they are played, his project is actually a physical creation, not CGI or AI. Turning his original idea into a reality took He and his team three years and several failed attempts. To make sure it functioned as he envisioned, they needed a special particle that could rise on its own, emit light, be precisely controlled, and disappear to give way to other notes as the music flowed. They wound up creating four different prototypes. To create the desired effect, the team experimented with smoke machines and lasers, vortex rings, and paint in a water-filled tank, which nearly derailed the project.
“Sometimes DIY isn’t just about inventing something new, it’s about finding the miracle that nature is willing to lend you,” He says. That particular miracle was what he named the “Blue tears piano,” powered by bioluminescent algae.
The piano is attached to a tank filled with these organisms, and they are triggered with air bubbles. This makes them glow all the way to the surface using the same principle that prompts them to light up coastlines around the world as waves hit the sand. Ultimately, this gives each of the 68 keys that make up the piano a way to visually express sound.
Over the course of completing this project, He also learned to play the piano. To present the finalized visual piano, he chose to perform the song “Time Travel” from the Chinese movie Secret (2007), with music by Jay Chou and Terdsak Janpan. For an extra bit of dramatic effect, He also added LED lights around the instrument.
He’s “magical piano” and the video chronicling its creation show him and his team overcoming adversity and taking on new risks. “We never gave up on that image in our heads,” He writes. “And finally, I can say we did it.”
To stay up to date with He and his creations, follow HTX Studio on YouTube.
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