Auditory and Visual based Intelligent Lighting Design for Music Concerts

Playing music is about conveying emotions and the lighting at a concert can help do that. However, without a dedicated light technician, many bands have to miss out on lighting that will help them to convey the emotions of what they play. In this paper we aim to develop an intelligent system that detects the intended emotions of the played music and in real-time adjusts the lighting accordingly. Through state-of-the-art research on music and emotion, a row of cues is defined. This includes amount, speed, fluency and regularity for the visual and level, tempo, articulation and timbre for the auditory. By assessing such cues, the system is able to detect the intended emotion. Specific lighting designs are then developed to support these specific emotions. The results suggest that the intelligent emotion-based lighting system has an advantage over a just beat synced lighting and it is concluded that there is reason to explore this idea further.