The Music of Maths (seven little songs based on mathematics)

A Maths&Music Concert at the "Mathemusical Encounters in Singapore: a Diderot Legacy" (Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music, 19 Feb - 23 Feb 2024). The list of "mathemusical" compositions includes the following pieces:
- Song for π
What is the melody of π? Or, at least, one of the possible melodies obtained by simply mapping the digits to the white keys of the piano? The multilingual song has been composed in March 2022 for the π-Day celebrations under the auspices of the International Mathematical Union and the support of IMAGINARY as an expression of the common hope to see back the peace flag in the world.
- Fibonacci's Waltz mod10
The unending and increasing Fibonacci sequence becomes stable and periodic once it is considered modulo 10. The corresponding melody corresponds to a highly symmetric path within the cyclic group of order 10 and has an intrinsic ternary character that can be naturally expressed as a waltz, like in this piano solo composition.
- Antes, después
This mathematical song is based on a permutational poem by the Argentinian poet Julio Cortázar (1914-1984). To each line (or verse) of each strophe of the poem is associated a melody and a harmony that stay invariant through the permutation process. This puts in question the teleological and directional character of a music composition where all melodies associated to the verses of the strophes can be permutated ad libitum.
- Mon coeur tu es fou
A song based on poem by the Iranian poet Forough Farrokhzad (1935-1967) who was also screenwriter, painter, and filmmaker. The poem, translated and sung in French, has been put into music by freely using the simplest Hamiltonian cycle in the Tonnetz corresponding to a zig-zag harmonic sequence passing through all possible major and minor chords.
- Hamiltonian Harmonies for Enzensberger's Number Devil
Two irreducible Hamiltonian Cycles (i.e. cycles without inner periodicity) on the Tonnetz provide the basic harmonic material for this little piano-solo piece commissioned by Renzo Sicco’s “Assemblea Teatro” company for his theatre adaptation of Hans Magnus Enzensberger’s Number Devil best-seller.
- La sera
After a poem by Mario Luzi (1914-2005), the song starts as a typical four chords pop song before entering, in the chorus, into a more suspended atmosphere thanks to the use of a particular Hamiltonian cycle on the Tonnetz enabling the modulation through all major and minor chords via a harmonic sequence with different degrees of inner symmetry. Le live performance is accompanied by a graphic animation available at • LaSera (ZhiZhu) and realized by “mathemusician” Gilles Baroin.
- The Gunner's Hamiltonian Dream
The song is a mathematical harmonization of Roger Waters’ celebrated “The Gunner’s Dream” from the album The Final Cut (1983). Three different Hamiltonian paths on the space of major, minor and augmented chords are used that entirely cover the formal structure of the original song. The performance is accompanied by Gilles Baroin’s graphic animation [ • HamilFloyd : The Gunne... ] using the “Cube Dance” graph-theoretical representation by Jack Douthett’s and Peter Steinbach as well as his own Hyper Sphere geometrical model.
A special thanks to Gilles Baroin for the graphic animations and to the technical team of the YST Conservatory of Music for the technical support and for the recordings.
The visual support of the concert is available at:
repmus.ircam.fr/_media/moreno/...

[@hcetigol]

09:30

[@francescabusca]

Bravissimo, Moreno!!! Instancabile. Splendido finale. Mi ricordo quando ce la stavamo ascoltando da noi a TS 🤩🤗

[@morenoandreatta740]

Grazie Francesca! La cosa più sorprendente resta comunque a mio avviso la canzone su π, un numero che non dovrebbe avere regolarità, eppure la musica arriva a mettere dell'ordine anche dove regna il caso. Un bel messaggio al mondo caotico nel quale viviamo, non ti sembra?

[@arbonautesmusic2736]

Grazie Moreno e continuiamo a sperare che π sia sinonimo di pace!

[@morenoandreatta740]

Vola colomba bianca vola...🕊