What Math Actually Sounds Like

cellophane writes "If Verdi had a math fetish and a computer, would he be John Greschak? Greschak composes music based upon the mathematical properties of various mathematical objects (e.g. a six-sided die or pentominoes). He writes computer programs to realize devised algorithms and uses the results of these processes as source material for musical pieces. Greschak's newest addition, Platonic Dice: Dodecahedron for 12 woodwinds, was created by using musical material derived from the mathematical properties of one of the Platonic dice. Well, its not Verdi, but its definitely interesting."

Comments

Re:I don't like it as much as mallcore

[gedanken]

I remember Fractint having a few fractal based songs. My favorite "math" music though has to be Aphex Twin! .

Roll your own...

[Black Parrot]

I haven't tried it yet, but a couple of days ago a message went out on guile-user saying that the Common Music composition language has been ported to GUILE. (It is a Lisp-based program that already worked with several varieties of Lisp; see the link for more info.)

It supports ordinary composition, but its toolbox supports stuff like random selection and interpolation into envelopes, which ought to make exploitation of the mathematical properties of objects pretty easy.

Fractal Music

[weird mehgny]

Makes me think of this artist. Some of the MP3's are nice.

Re:What die do I use

[dubiousmike]

Try Roland's software synth.

I think its free and has pretty decent sounds.

Playing at this since Plato

[rochlin]

Non-musical types have been playing and producing mathematical music since Plato. I can't say any of it ranks up there with "twinkle twinkle" (even). But it never hurts to try...

Cage? Schoenberg? Varese?

[dogfart]

Edgar Varese did some very strange, percussion-based music in the 1920's inspired by mathematics - such as Hyperprism and Integrales. Not 12-tone in the sense that Schoenberg did, but very different in its own way.

He was incredibly an early influence on Frank Zappa.

I'm not a music student, just an educated listener. Maybe someone better versed in 20th century music than I am can comment on the relevance of Varese to mathmatically-inspired music.

Re:puhhhlleeeassseeee

[IcEMaN252]

Can't argue there. If you look at Mozart or Bach, there music is FAR from random. Good music is very calculated. Even heavy metal usually has some sort of order to it. Whereas, as I understand it, this has none.