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Fibs - Fibonacci-based Poetry

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the nerdy-haiku dept.

Gregory K. writes "April is National Poetry Month (and, it turns out, Math Awareness Month), and on my blog, I decided to get people writing poetry based on the Fibonacci sequence. The poems are six lines, 20 syllables long with the syllable pattern 1/1/2/3/5/8, though they can go longer, obviously. I've been calling 'em Fibs, and people have been writing them on pop culture, politics, math, and more."

9 of 276 comments (clear)

  1. Re:nice! by afaik_ianal · · Score: 1, Informative

    It's
    not
    that hard.
    Have a go!
    You might be surprised
    at the peotry you can write!

  2. Re:Seen elsewhere... by evrybodygonsurfin · · Score: 2, Informative

    See also MC Paul Barman's Paullelujah! album.

  3. Fibonacci by Zog+The+Undeniable · · Score: 5, Informative

    Did
    You
    Know That
    The Sequence
    Originally
    Described The Humping Of Rabbits?

    --
    When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
    1. Re:Fibonacci by Zog+The+Undeniable · · Score: 2, Informative
      It's not the number of individual rabbits, it's the number of pairs. From Wikipedia:

      In the West, [the Fibonacci sequence] was first studied by Leonardo of Pisa, who was also known as Fibonacci (c. 1200), to describe the growth of an idealised (although biologically unrealistic) rabbit population. The numbers describe the number of pairs in the rabbit population after n months if it is assumed that:

      in the first month there is just one newly-born pair, new-born pairs become fertile from their second month on each month every fertile pair begets a new pair, and the rabbits never die.

      Suppose that in month n we have a total of a pairs of rabbits and in month n + 1 we have b pairs. In month n + 2 we will necessarily have a + b pairs, because all a pairs of rabbits from month n will be fertile and produce a new pairs of offspring (since all a rabbits are at least two months old) -- plus b, which are the existing pairs of rabbits at n + 1 (remember the assumption that no rabbit ever dies).

      --
      When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
  4. Re:Seen elsewhere... by CRCulver · · Score: 4, Informative
    Tool is rather late on the bandwagon. The composer Sofia Gubaidulina made wide use of the Fibbonaci sequence in the 1980s, happy to find a way of systemization that still allowed the form to "breathe". Her 1986 symphony "Stimmen... Verstummen..." is a notable example: the length of its movements grow ever shorter according to the sequence. In the 9th movement is a conductor's "solo", where he motions before a silent orchestra, the distance between his hands growing ever larger according to the sequence. In the 1990s she began using the Lucas and Evanglist series as well, whose aesthetic imperfection alongside the divine harmony of the Fibonacci sequence makes tantalizing listening. See V. Tsenova's thesis Zahlenmystik in der Music von Sofia Gubaidulina for a musicological analysis.

    That's only one example. Per Norgard may be mentioned as well, his third symphony abounds in Golden Section references. And, as others is well known, Bartok used the sequence heavily in his work.

  5. Re:Tool- Lateralus already does this. by CRCulver · · Score: 4, Informative

    If you are going to laugh at the article just because some rock band did something similar six years ago, then by your own standards Tool would have to be a laughingstock as well. Composers of art music have been using the Fibonacci sequence for decades. Bartok back in the 1930s and 1940s, Iannis Xenakis in the 1950s, Per Norgard in the 1970s, Sofia Gubaidulina in the 1980s. What took Tool so long?

  6. Re:Tool - Lateralus by CRCulver · · Score: 2, Informative

    Tool's music is mind-numbingly simplistic compared to the art music composers who have used the Fibonacci sequence in their work (Gubaidulina, Xenakis, Bartok, Norgard, etc.). Tool's music sticks to rock rhythms and chord structures, doesn't use all twelve tones of the chromatic scale as has been encouraged since Schoenberg, and uses the same limited instrumentation as most rock (Carey's versatile drum kit doesn't compensate for the same-old same-oldness of the rest of the band).

  7. Cutting it off at the pass by BinaryOpty · · Score: 5, Informative
    Before anyone else does a "OMG Tool did it first!!" and then someone responds to them with "No, [insert older reference here] did it first!", the blog author acknowledges this in his post (linked to in the first, longer link). I quote:
    and, as much as I'd like to say I invented a new form of poetry, these sequences have been part of various poetic structures since before Fibonacci's time.
    As such, now anyone who brings up the Tool/etc thing in such a way that they're implying the blog author is claiming credit for inventing this can be marked a troll.
  8. Re:Tool - Lateralus by gameforge · · Score: 2, Informative

    Tool's music sticks to rock rhythms

    Actually, that's not entirely accurate... I really don't like Tool much at all, but one thing I found unique about them was that a lot of their songs don't use the traditional 4/4 (drumBASSdrumBASSdrumBASS) type rhythm. Don't they have some tunes in 9/8?

    Considering just about every rock song that comes out anymore sounds exactly like every other, a break from the 4/4 rock beat is noteworthy. Of course, all of my exposure to Tool at all comes from years ago...