Real primenumber music

hi

This midifile is made by primenumbers, belive it or not! Listen to it :laugh:

If you like math, I can tell you that this melody is going from the 100th primenumber to the 173th one: from the primenumber 541 to the primenumber 1031

As you maby can understand im not going to change the main melody cause it is made by Numbers, and nobody can change our beautyfull numbers! Give me response if you have something to say! :)

d

primtallmusikk_nr1.mid

How are the prime numbers translated into music?

There are many ways to do this which I have thought of, but this isn't one of them.

Interesting.

I hated it, yet I loved every bit of it. :glare:

Good work! It's fun to take numbers and play with them in music. You've translated the prime numbers into something that actually makes sense. I can see this as being background music to something. I love the syncopated feel some of the repeated notes in the melody create. But why does it end so abruptly?

Thank you for your responses! :blink:

Jacob: it is hard to explain how I made it from primenumbers to music (also the first 10 seconds which is going over and over), but I can try: I used microsoft excel, and at first I listed up primenumbers in part A in excel in a row down (that takes much time!). And then I write "=A4-A1" in B4 and use the same over the hole B (I pull it whith the mouse). After that i take C5 and write "=B5-B4" and use it in the hole C. And in D5 I write "=C5/2" and use it in the hole D like the other. Then the numbers in the row D tells me how much the notes goes up or down from note to note. I started at the C-note. I hope you understand :glare: The most of the melody I get then is maby useless, maby it can be used as art or something.

Letehn: thanks for nice comment!

Johannhowitzer: thanks for feedback, I dont know why I made it end so abruptly, I couldent find any better way to end it when I made it.. anyway I will made the song least longer some day

d

hi again

I have now made a longer verison of the song! I hope you like it. Tell me what you think :)

(I wish I could make the song any longer than this too but my midi program cant make songs for more than about one and a half min :( , maby 2 if I only use few instruments)

thanks for listening :P

d

PrimeNumberMusic_Nr1b.mid

ugh...Modernists....

Would you stop it please?

This is impolite and unconstructive - I'm sure just about everyone on this forum knows you don't like modern music already! But since you continually say that you don't want to be rude, it's funny that you keep making comments like this that neither improve the piece nor support your argument.

By the way, since you don't like modern music, you probably shouldn't be hanging out in in the "Experimental, Atonal, or Other" section of the forum. Logic, Mr. Canzano, simple logic.

Ugh... kids these days...

By the way, dronjom, I can't say I was particularly excited about this idea when I first saw your thread, but I was pleasantly surprised. This piece really does work as music!

Did you, by any chance, get this idea from Xenakis?

Best regards,

John Carey

thanks for feedback!

The only thing I know about xenakis is that it is something about modern music..

This is how I found the melody: at first I thought that it maby could be music behind our numbers/primenumbers, so I tried, and luckyly I found this melody. ;)

d

I've always avoided using numeric or mathematic music because I don't have the ability to forecast where it's going to come out to - and I oftentimes don't like what happens to it. However, you have made this a truly interesting and wonderful piece with these prime numbers - there is just enough "thematic repetition" to make it a unified piece, without being repetitive. The repeated tones are my only problem - and then only in the piano solo section at the beginning, because they create sections of complete stasis in an otherwise extraordinarily mobile piece. If there were a way to make them keep moving during that first segment, and then bring them back to stasis in the ensemble part, when the other instruments provide another harmony to it, then this would be more than just amazing.

Thanks for comment christopher!

but sorry I dont really understand the last part off your post cause I am not very good in english :P You mean that the pianosolo in the beginning should go twice?

hm..

d :)

Sorry - I wasn't very clear -

What I meant was that the piano solo has long sections of repeated notes - just one note, repeated many times. If there were a way to make it not repeat so often (or make it move through the repetitions, rather than just staying there) during that first solo, It would add interest to the first section. I don't feel that interest need be added in the second segment, because you have the counterpoints of the other instruments.

Thanks, I should try to make the startsolo different :D

d

I'm generally opposed to number music but hey, I like it. It is pretty neat piece but at certain points it is kind of blah. Mainly around the 50 second mark.

Hello,

anyone remember this piece I posted 3 years ago? I remade the piece few days ago and found out I had done a mistake, a primenumber was written wrong, so now I have updated a new version.

I have also made it in mp3, but I cant upload it here still, it sounds the same way.

Imagine how it would be if we discover life on another planet in the universe and they have made exactly the same melody out of primes. Cool, huh? :) Maby they say to us: "We will be friends with you if you have got so far in the technology that you can show us you have made music out of primes!". Then the earth will ask me to have my song and I can say "You can buy it for 100 million dollars" :D

I remember I posted it to a big norwegian Math site and also a international Math site and they both said it was very interesting and they wanted to use it on their website, but then I never heard of them..

I am also trying to use the piece in a story I am writing.

Any comments are welcome :)

PrimeNumberMusic_Nr1c.mid

My main question is why you chose to use prime numbers specifically. There are sets of numbers that have very distinct properties when mapped musically, such as the Fibonacci sequence, simple arithmetic or geometric sequences, etc. but a sequence of prime numbers is pretty much a sequence of pseudo-random values, with no inherent predictable patterns etc. In your case you found a way around this problem by creating repetition "artificially", just by repeating a passage many times. Furthermore, you created a sense of harmonic unity, simply by not using a chromatic (or similar) selection of sounds, but by staying diatonic in "C major".

Now, these things certainly work to get away from the feeling of randomness one might otherwise get from a prime-number based music, but my personal issue with them is that in the end, the primenumbers actually don't have a great impact on how the music sounds - which is much more defined by those other standard musical decisions you made (repetition, diatonic tone selection, instrumentation, constant rhythm, etc.). Those are the musically striking properties of your piece, and not the exact intervals that are caused by the prime numbers. I don't think the piece would have sounded much differently if you had used any other number sequence, such as pure random numbers, and treated them in the same way afterwards.

So the main question for me is this: Is the fact that you used prime numbers for you the defining aspect of your piece, i.e. do you want certain properties of prime numbers to be heard? Then you actually might want to cut back on those other structuring tricks you use that have nothing to do with prime numbers and simply serve to create a coherent piece of music - so the actual properties of the number sequence can be more apparent. (But as I said, I doubt prime numbers are an optimal sequence for this, since if you do that and leave away the repetition, instrumental buildup, diatonicism etc. it will very likely just sound like a random sequence of notes and not like a mathematical structure).

If, on the other hand, the musical structures you "put over" the prime numbers are your main goal (i.e. the way you formed a whole piece out of some basic material) and the prime numbers merely serve as a "pseudo-random creator of musical material", then prime numbers certainly are a perfectly valid and understandable source you can use. In other words: If not the melody is important to you, but what you do with the melody afterwards, it makes some sense to use something like prime numbers as a source in the way you did. But then, you might consider making the musical decisions on top of this source a bit more varied, in my opinion. For example playing with rhythmical values, instrumentation, different harmonic fields (for example just "modulating" to a new key now and then by introducing new key signatures) etc. Then, this approach could become really interesting. As it is, I'm afraid it still leaves me a bit cold.

So, all in all, my opinion is that the piece might gain a lot if you ask yourself what the actual properties (of the numbers or of your aesthetic goals) are you want to show in this piece, and not just use series of numbers and hope something interesting will pop up by chance.

That was a lot of text.. I am not so good in English but I should try. I thought I found a ok melody by an easy way to translate primenumbers in to music, I'm sorry if you don't like it. Are you trying to put my piece apart by saying I cant use drums etc in a piece made by numbers? So why do songs need/have background music then, since it says "song" and not "instrumental"? I used other instruments to fresh it up. Did you read my signature where I say I am bad in English and then write all that text just to irritate me? But it is good with text tho :P better than nothing

Sorry if I look too negative :D but it looks like you are trying to quarreling my piece apart. I just made a piece for you to hear :)

regards

Daniel

Interesting; I think you did a good job of piecing together a musical piece without a very melodic sequence (or, at least, a very nontraditional melodic sequence).

At certain points of the piece I find myself loving it and the melody, but at others I find myself unable to find the musicality of the melody (if that makes sense; your piece has a unique feel to it, which I find difficult to describe).

dronjom: Oh, no, I wasn't trying to pull your piece apart. I apologize if it seemed so. But you asked for comments and so I wrote what I thought. Sorry if it was too much text or too negative - I hadn't actually read your signature, and I was definitely not trying to irritate you on purpose.

It's just that music based on mathematical structures and similar things is often regarded very critically here, and since I'm one of the people who does value some of this music highly, I'm especially critical about its execution. If the concept of your piece didn't interest me at all, I wouldn't have posted.

And I'm certainly not saying you may not use drums or whatever else. You are of course free to write whatever you like. But since this is a forum based on critical review of pieces (and not just listen to them for personal enjoyment), I thought I'd mention my suggestions for improvement of your concept. Those are obviously highly personal, and you may certainly disagree with anything I said.

xiii1408:

Thank you very much for your comment :)

Gardener:

I understand, I am glad you commented :) better with comments than with none, even if they are a bit critical. I'm sorry if I didn't answer so much of your questions :blush:

:)

why your post have so much response and view?

it started on Jan 5 2006,

just the last posts are recent....

numbers numbers, all that you want, can have all the work that you want. but for my, this is waste, sound bad.

umm, thanks for posting a review anyways :P poor you didnt like it, maby I should upgrade it somehow

Hello,

anyone remember this piece I posted 3 years ago? I remade the piece few days ago and found out I had done a mistake, a primenumber was written wrong, so now I have updated a new version.

I have also made it in mp3, but I cant upload it here still, it sounds the same way.

Imagine how it would be if we discover life on another planet in the universe and they have made exactly the same melody out of primes. Cool, huh? :) Maby they say to us: "We will be friends with you if you have got so far in the technology that you can show us you have made music out of primes!". Then the earth will ask me to have my song and I can say "You can buy it for 100 million dollars" :D

I remember I posted it to a big norwegian Math site and also a international Math site and they both said it was very interesting and they wanted to use it on their website, but then I never heard of them..

I am also trying to use the piece in a story I am writing.

Any comments are welcome :)

First of all, tons and tons of music has been done using prime numbers, my own included, so I don't know that anyone will necessarily be buying your music based on only that.

I couldn't actually look at your piece, but from what I've read, you've only applied the numbers, in a very limited way, to pitch. Why not allow the numbers to determine other aspects of the composition? Form, rhythm, articulation, or dynamics? Why pitch?