I always have a sense of pride when stumble upon something new...
http://www.olsondecariduo.com/science-and-music/creativity-in-science-and-music
couldn't have found it if i'd been looking for it.
Tuesday, 9 February 2010
Thursday, 4 February 2010
Carmen of the Spheres
I got caught in the black hole of wikipedia yesterday, (you 'wiki' something silly, that you want a basic explanation of, then find an interesting link to something else, and another linked word on that page, etc...) and I ended up on the page explaining 'Musica Universalis'. Then there was another link (this is going somewhere, I promise) to a composer's page, by the name of Greg Fox. He has written a piece with a really cool concept, and here's what he's about:
"My approach in "Carmen of the Spheres" is to try to literally hear the planets as they orbit the sun. Obviously 365.25 days is a good deal slower than the average sound wave!! However there is a wonderful principle in acoustics, at the very least for humans, and that is that when you double the speed of the wave, the "flavour" of the pitch remains the same. The implications of this are obvious for things like "octaves" - an F# is an F# is an F#. However we can only hear certain frequencies - broadly speaking something like 50hz (ie. a pressure wave hitting the ear drum 50 times per second) up to (depending on age and exposure to loud noise!) around 5000hz, perhaps higher. Meaningful musical inflections are available for much of this range to differing extents, with chordal harmony being possible from approximately 300hz up to approximately 2000hz. Once the trick of doubling the frequency takes the sound-wave outside what we humans can hear, we have to take nature's word for it that an F# is still an F#, but there's no reason to suppose that it's not equally true. Therefore if you have the planitary orbital period enough times, you should find the "pitch" of a planet orbiting the sun (or rather that pitch raised several (in the region of 36 to 40) octaves!! (Obviously this metaphor has limits: doubtless planets do not orbit with ABSOLUTE reliability, though perhaps the 'errors' in orbital period become "small enough" once the wave has been sufficiently sped up!!)
Anyway so the method is to take the orbital period of the planets in seconds, divide and divide and divide by two until the frequencies can be heard. This gives us six octaves' worth of "planet notes" for each planet.
This approach could yield a variety of types of music and types of project. However for this specific piece I decided to further increase the "consilience" of the method by applying the same data to duration. A little higher up the scale of halvings, the periods are long enough (and short enough) to be useful as durations, so those are the durations I used."
-(http://homepages.tesco.net/gregskius/carmen.html)
"My approach in "Carmen of the Spheres" is to try to literally hear the planets as they orbit the sun. Obviously 365.25 days is a good deal slower than the average sound wave!! However there is a wonderful principle in acoustics, at the very least for humans, and that is that when you double the speed of the wave, the "flavour" of the pitch remains the same. The implications of this are obvious for things like "octaves" - an F# is an F# is an F#. However we can only hear certain frequencies - broadly speaking something like 50hz (ie. a pressure wave hitting the ear drum 50 times per second) up to (depending on age and exposure to loud noise!) around 5000hz, perhaps higher. Meaningful musical inflections are available for much of this range to differing extents, with chordal harmony being possible from approximately 300hz up to approximately 2000hz. Once the trick of doubling the frequency takes the sound-wave outside what we humans can hear, we have to take nature's word for it that an F# is still an F#, but there's no reason to suppose that it's not equally true. Therefore if you have the planitary orbital period enough times, you should find the "pitch" of a planet orbiting the sun (or rather that pitch raised several (in the region of 36 to 40) octaves!! (Obviously this metaphor has limits: doubtless planets do not orbit with ABSOLUTE reliability, though perhaps the 'errors' in orbital period become "small enough" once the wave has been sufficiently sped up!!)
Anyway so the method is to take the orbital period of the planets in seconds, divide and divide and divide by two until the frequencies can be heard. This gives us six octaves' worth of "planet notes" for each planet.
This approach could yield a variety of types of music and types of project. However for this specific piece I decided to further increase the "consilience" of the method by applying the same data to duration. A little higher up the scale of halvings, the periods are long enough (and short enough) to be useful as durations, so those are the durations I used."
-(http://homepages.tesco.net/gregskius/carmen.html)
I really like his logical and impartial approach to composing music. Plus, these pieces are free to download!! Thank you Greg Fox!
Wednesday, 3 February 2010
Thoughts on composition
I've been thinking more about my compositions; with my proposal approaching I'd really like to be lucid in outlining my plans.
I do prefer writing pieces that musically try to depict an event of some sort, such as writing a piece about a black hole therefore the timbre could get incredibly more dense... or the idea I had for using the data I recorded during the Geminids meteor shower. I have written pieces that are based on observations too, and I translate what I see into music. Come to think of it, I don't just sit down and write a pretty little piece then name it after a star... there is actually a process behind it. So perhaps I'll look at music that uses similar methods for my dissertation to give the two a stronger connection...
I did it!!!
I spotted the International Space Station! I walked to a field where I would have little obscurity from buildings/trees, took out my trusty compass, and double checked these directions:
LOCAL DURATION APPROACH DEPARTURE
DATE/TIME (MIN) (DEG-DIR) (DEG-DIR)
Wed Feb 03 07:12 AM 10 above S 13 above SSE
LOCAL DURATION APPROACH DEPARTURE
DATE/TIME (MIN) (DEG-DIR) (DEG-DIR)
Wed Feb 03 07:12 AM 10 above S 13 above SSE
It was still quite dark and since this was the third attempt at sighting it, I took my small laptop with me and turned on the program Stellarium which was able to map out degrees and directions accurately. To be honest, it just looked like a normal satellite. But the point was, it wasn't. It was so nice to watch it go by.
I even waved...
Monday, 1 February 2010
Sounds of the Universe... or are they?
I gave my presentation today, and got lots of helpful feedback. A lot of my classmates seem interested and enthusiastic about what I'm doing, and I've been told to check some things out.
Michael Maier:
German alchemist (1568 - 1622). I googled him and have found something he's written called 'Música hermética', which seems promising.
John Hall suggested I check out Sun Ra and the Arkestra. I listened to a sample and it's very Jazz (I don't like Jazz!) And like the crazy Stockhausen, Sun Ra claims: "I never wanted to be a part of planet Earth, but I am compelled to be here, so anything I do for this planet is because the Master-Creator of the Universe is making me do it. I am of another dimension. I am on this planet because people need me". (http://www.elrarecords.com/sunra.html). Seems interesting but I'm not sure if I'll need this....
Mark also informed me that one of the IT guys had taken a few courses on astronomy so I emailed him and he seems happy to help if I need any information.
Michael Maier:
German alchemist (1568 - 1622). I googled him and have found something he's written called 'Música hermética', which seems promising.
John Hall suggested I check out Sun Ra and the Arkestra. I listened to a sample and it's very Jazz (I don't like Jazz!) And like the crazy Stockhausen, Sun Ra claims: "I never wanted to be a part of planet Earth, but I am compelled to be here, so anything I do for this planet is because the Master-Creator of the Universe is making me do it. I am of another dimension. I am on this planet because people need me". (http://www.elrarecords.com/sunra.html). Seems interesting but I'm not sure if I'll need this....
Mark also informed me that one of the IT guys had taken a few courses on astronomy so I emailed him and he seems happy to help if I need any information.
Everyone has been really positive and some of the more complicated questions got me thinking. I was challenged about the idea of radio astronomy as sounds. Technically it is light, converted into sound, so it's not really the sound of the universe. I should firstly make it clear that I'm not advertising these sounds as the modern day version of the music of the spheres; the two are very different. Secondly, just because we can't hear this without the aid of technology, who's to say it can't be heard by other alien species (sorry to get all L. Ron Hubbard on you, but why limit what's possible to the confines of human ability when we're talking about the Universe?). This made me think of a radio programme about dolphin echo location and the idea of using sound as a means of visualising something. But humans can't make use of SONAR without technology.
The sounds attained through radio telescopes aren't just converted for the fun of it. Yes, the radiowaves received in the form of light, and this data is used to study astronomy.
But perhaps my stronger argument here is not the notion that we are 'listening to the universe', but rather that we are 'tuned in' to it, and that astronomers also use this converted sound as scientific data - so I am using what astronomers consider scientific data as a musician. It's one to be careful about.
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