About

Midi Art is a user-created art that illustrate MIDI compositions visually through a careful arrangement of color-coded musical blocks.

Precursor

Midi Art first appeared on YouTube in 2011 under the name Black Midi. According to the Impossible Music Wiki, YouTuber kakakakaito1998 created the original compositions utilized by a group of blackers known as the Black MIDI Team. On February 6th, 2011, kakakakaito1998 uploaded a video featuring a MIDI track containing a high volume of notes (shown below). Within the first three years, the video gained over 100,000 views and 290 comments.

The form began to spread throughout YouTube, as composers created and transcribed compositions such that the notes played would appear as abstract art. The process was supposed to invoke a sense of synesthesia, a condition in which one hears music and visualizes corresponding colors. One of the earlier examples, posted November 20th, 2012, uses the song "Bad Apple" (shown below).

Origin

On February 9th, 2017, musician Savant posted a Midi Art of a bird^[1] on Facebook, gaining 3.5M Views, 37K Likes, 6.6K Comments, and 37K Shares (YouTube embed below)

Spread

On February 16th, 2017, YouTube user ANDREW HUANG posted a video of himself attempting to make his own Midi Art song with a picture of a unicorn (shown below).

On February 20th, 2017, he posted the final product, gaining 790,595 views and 27,881 likes.

His work inspired other YouTubers to try their own compositions, creating a small uptick in Midi Art videos in February 2017.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References