Music is meant to be heard and not seen, right? Sure, we can watch musicians play instruments, and we can see music notation on paper. But that’s not the same as seeing music itself.

A young man named He Tongxue from HTX Studio, a team of DIY innovators from Hangzhou, China, wanted to be able to “see music.” He had just started learning piano and felt like the visible dimension was missing. There are plenty of computer programs that create digital visual effects with music, of course. But the goal was to make music visible in real life.

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It took the studio three years, four prototypes, and endless tests to come up with just the right combination of elements. They wanted something that would rise from the piano and light up when the keys were pressed.

Their first idea went up in smoke

“Our first thought was smoke,” he said. They figured they could line up smoke machines that would be triggered by the piano keys and use lasers to light up the smoke as it rises.

The studio built a prototype, and at first, it looked pretty cool. But after playing the piano for a few minutes, the cool factor wore off. He later described it as “a disaster.”

“The smoke drifts everywhere,” he said. “You can’t tell which light matches which note. It feels like a genie is........

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