

Math Becomes Music: What Pi Sounds Like - joshsegall
http://www.good.is/post/math-becomes-music-what-pi-sounds-like/

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hammock
I always find it interesting when people say "music is just like math!" and
then proceed simply to assign numbers to a scale like that. The relationship
between C-D-E-F on a scale is nowhere close to 1-2-3-4. The stuff always ends
up sounding like this, which is OK but it still bugs me.

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spicyj
Actually, those are used somewhat commonly in music. See:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degree_(music)>

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pak
There are much more interesting ways to relate numbers to pitches; see the
Pythagorean ratios and tuning before equal temperament.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pythagorean_tuning>

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xiaoma
Since it's an 8 tone scale why not use octal and get perfect mappings?

Pi in octal would be 3.1103755236215...

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est
I'd say base12 is much more musical.

3.184809493b918664573a6211bb151551a05729290a7809a492742140a60a5

Where 0-B matches C, C#, D, D#, ..., A B.

~~~
pmjordan
Another option would be base 5 for a pentatonic scale [1], or using the
decimal representation to cover 2 octaves. Might sound a bit more natural than
base 12.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentatonic_scale>

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transmit101
Great video and a beautiful composition using very simple rules. I'd have
liked to have seen more about the circle of fifths and harmonic structure
though, because this is where the relationship between music and mathematics
starts to get really interesting.

I don't, however, agree that this is what Pi sounds like. The composer could
easily have applied any one of an incalculable number of different rules, and
come up with something which sounded completely different..

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dougws
One of the first programs I ever wrote did basically this--took an expansion
of pi and made midi files out of it. It took a scale parameter, so you could
give it a minor or major key (or any of the modes). I found it interesting to
listen to because my ear naturally looked for patterns, and occasionally found
one only to have it ruined by the next bar.

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jrockway
Won't pretty much any random combination of notes in a scale sound equally
good as 3.1415926535798?

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JoeAltmaier
Pi IS pretty much random notes (digits). There's nothing about pi that says
"express it in base ten". Probably in binary it would get pretty repetitive
tho.

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baddox
Honestly, if _this_ is considered as good-sounding music, then I don't think
_any_ combination of tones from the C major scale could be considered bad-
sounding.

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nerme
There is a fair bit of composition going on, albeit all based on a single
melodic phrase, so it is far from just being any old random combinations of
tones from the C major scale.

It is definitely a canon, meaning the same phrase played at different starting
points. A round is a simple form of a canon. Think of the melody to Frere
Jacques.

From a perspective of form, this song expands on the basic concept of a round
by playing with double time, half time, quarter time, etc.

It has a lot of elements of serialist music, in which a musical pattern is
subjected to a number of operations, although this song doesn't venture in to
the more strict forms of twelve-tone composition. It is more along the lines
of minimalist composers like Steve Reich and Phillip Glass, who took some of
serialism's academic approaches to composition and made them hypnotic and
rhythmic. In a sense, making fruit-of-the-earth pop music out of some sort of
cerebral concept.

Overall the musical production is of pretty damn good quality. The
performances sound good and the recordings were well made. The variation of
instruments is impressive and the introduction of various pop styles keeps the
concept novel.

One of my main gripes with "math music" is that it can be downright
unenjoyable on an aesthetic level.

This song does a very good job of taking something inherently non-musical and
making it pleasing to the ears, all while strictly adhering to a set of rules
laid out before composition began.

~~~
baddox
I appreciate it for its good production value, and as an example of
constrained composition. I question even the "mathiness" of it, since it's
just based on a truncated decimalization of pi. If you're just looking for a
quick and easy constraint to express yourself under, I suppose this is as good
a constraint as any, but my main point is that, as you say, there is no
aesthetic value to the piece, and _definitely_ no true insight on mathematics
or the nature of the constant known as pi.

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zaccus
The major scale has 7 notes: do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, and ti. The 8th note is
just another do.

What would really be interesting would be to express pi in base 12 and map the
pitches of the chromatic scale to it. It might sound chaotic, but then again
it's not pi's job to keep us entertained.

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joshsegall
If you're looking for songs _about_ pi, I love this one by Hard n Phirm:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDu351QNoZE>

The video (by Keith Schofield) is also awesome.

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spacemanaki
Well I liked this... but I know nothing about music. All the posts griping
about "math music" -- can anyone point to something like "intro to music for
math people" ?

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zaccus
Chew on this:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overtone_series>

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AndrewVos
Code for this is here (and only works on OS X)
<https://github.com/AndrewVos/pi-notes>

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fooandbarify
Pi sounds like nothing. cos(2.pi.f.t), on the other hand...

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TimothyBurgess
I thought it sounded quite beautiful. Gave me chills.

On a related note, a tech metal band called "After the Burial" wrote a
breakdown according to pi. The song is actually called "Pi (The Mercury God of
Infinity)"... and for those of you who are unfamiliar with the term
"breakdown" (in metal these days)... it's typically just chugging a certain
pattern on a low note (sometimes a few more) with everyone in sync.

Here's After the Burial performing Pi live:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_Msy-YUs4Y> (The Pi pattern starts at 1:10
but I like the intro hehe...)

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shii
Hell yeah, never thought I'd see another tech death metal fan on HN,
especially not a fellow ATB fan.

Forging a Future Self is such an amazing album all around. I listened to
Fingers Like Daggers obsessively back a few years ago and always loved the
deep complexity of their music. Not a fan of the rerelease of Rareform though,
the sort of quieting/dulling of the vocals in Ometh (best song in that album
IMO) killed it.

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mhansen
Too bad that pi is wrong.

<http://tauday.com>

