in Excel Tips & Tricks
free (1)Oz du Soleil experiments with how to visualize music in Excel.  To do this, he takes the song “Pressman” by Primus.  Oz is a bit of a bass player, so his choice of Primus is…  well… not entirely unexpected.
Shocker.
But what is a bit surprising… or novel… is how he uses Excel in a way that most people would not consider.  Turning on and off different accompaniments, so that he can visualize the instruments that are being played at different parts of the song.  Its an interesting approach that is worth exploring

So Let’s Explore

bullet step 1

 Go to the Developer Tab

If you don’t see the developer tab, then go to
Preferences>Sharing and Compatibility>Ribbon
select “Developer”
Please note tat your particular version of Excel may reveal the developer tab in different ways.

bullet step 2

 Insert Radio Buttons

In the video Oz shows you how he the radio buttons to place a number (such as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) based on which radio button is selected.  In Oz’s example, he places the value in cell T12
2015-03-10_02-20-24

2014-10-28_17-20-23

Use and Index Formula for the Lookup

Use and Index formula to grab the value from Step #2 to perform a lookup.
2015-03-10_02-31-45

bApply Conditional Formatting

The conditional formatting formula that is used looks at cell T14 — which is where the calculation from Step #3 was performed, and looks to see if that value is found anywhere in the the measures (columns ‘E’ through ‘M’).
2015-03-10_02-44-35
2015-02-03_20-55-27

The Video Tutorial

The video tutorial is available below

BONUS Download

pressman-primus <– Click to download the spreadsheet example

Check out Oz’s Book


Guerrilla Data Analysis Using Microsoft Excel is yours for the taking.  Check it out.