# Suggestions for sonifying math

Let me apologize first as I see this may be way off topic. Still it is a really fun question I've been meaning to ask a few fellow grads/faculty members, and so I think it's worth a shot here.

I'm interested in suggestions for using math formulas or concepts in coding algorithmic music.

In Stephen Cope's Workshop in Algorithmic Computer Music in 2004 I was introduced to the art of algorithmic composition, through coding LISP to generate midi compositions, frequently using markov chains to weight transitions, from the large scale harmonic progression and rhythmic structure to the individual notes and their time values.

We played a bit with simple math functions for generating simple pieces. One of these I wrote "sonified" the towers of Hanoi. The movement of the kth largest disk generated a bleep of frequency N(2/3)^k, for N some (high) starting frequency. Since 2/3 is roughly the ratio to get the next lower 5th, the I was able to stay roughly in the 12 tone equal temperament, while superimposing the same pulse at (2/3)^k the (tempo and wave) frequency. The piece wasn't particularly interesting musically, but conceptually fun.

In the workshop many other math themes are explored such as cellular automata, genetic algorithms, Brownian motion. I've been thinking since about interesting curves on the orbifold $T^n/\Sigma_n$ ($n$ continuous voices modulo the octave and modulo their labeling), and also about energy functions which give harmonic progressions as geodesics. (Perhaps harmonic functions would be applicable here, after all!)

I wonder what specific examples others have for making interesting pieces of music (art), or vague examples for that matter.

I'm happy to close this off, too, if no one is interested. Sorry for the softy.