Advice needed: Arduino-controlled RYB Incandescent Light Wall

Hello all,

I am a complete arduino novice. I'm in the process of fabricating an assembly of twelve 15.25" cylinders that will be oriented on my wall, each one encircling three incandescent flood bulbs-- blue, red and normal yellow/white, which will face out from the wall toward the room.

My goal for this project is to have an arduino-controlled wall of lights that can be dimmed and the overall color adjusted by varying the brightness of the red, blue or yellow bulbs within each cylinder. It would be lovely to also have this system react to music, or to be able to generate random or even specific patterns that would play across the matrix of lights.

The configuration of cylinders is as follows:

o o
o o o
o o
o o o
o o

Each cylinder, again, will contain three sockets into which bulbs can be placed.

The reason I would prefer incandescent bulbs to LED's, which is the contemporary and most likely more pragmatic and common solution, is that their natural warmth is aesthetically more pleasant to me, as are the actual bulbs. This is an art installation and I am very particular about the details of its appearance. Furthermore, I would like it to function as normal lighting if desired, by having just the white/yellow bulbs come on, at variable brightness, to light the room.

Please advise on any sort of introductory resources that might illuminate my learning process. At this point, I know nothing of arduino coding however I am adept with computers and willing to do plenty of research.

If you are of the opinion that I must consider color-changing LED bulbs as an alternative to incandescents, then I would love to hear your reasons and will entertain alternative configurations.

Thanks in advance for any constructive advice! Feel free to email me at etristram $at( g-mail

-Edward