The 12 zodiac animals
Our Song
Our Song is a “system” which allows people to compose a song for their family and friends. The score is based on the birth year of users. In Asia, some countries use animal symbolization to designate each year, such as Taiwan, Korea, and Japan. According to the lunar calendar, there are twelve animals by turns. It starts from rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, sheep, monkey, rooster, dog, to pig. In the Our Song system, each animal sign represents a MIDI number. (rat =48, ox =50, tiger =52, rabbit=53, dragon =55, snake =57, horse =59, sheep =60, monkey=62, rooster =64, dog,=67, pig =69) Before creating a new song, users can look up which animal signs they and their friends (or family) belong to on Wikipedia’s Chinese Astrology then change them to MIDI numbers. For example, my family song consists of six MIDI notes. This is according to my family members’ animal signs. My father was born in 1948 so his animal sign is rat. His MIDI number is 48. My mother was born in 1952 so her animal sign is dragon. Her MIDI number is 55. My grandfather’s MIDI number is 57. My grandmother’s is 53. Mine is 60. My sister’s is 64. I then opened a text file and imported a number array from my grandfather’s MIDI number to my sister’ MIDI number. (0, 57; 1, 64; 2, 64; 3, 55; 4, 60; 5, 64; ) After that, I choose two instruments to compose the song. I selected a telephone sound because now my family are all in different places such as Taiwan, California, and, Missouri. The music box sound represents our communication. Our Song is a meaningful system. It encourages users to think about the relationship between them and others, then transform it to music. It is an experimental and romantic art.
