MusicalNumbers

This is a toy program to entertain the idea of mapping number sequences, such as pi, square roots of numbers, ect. into folk music tunes (i.e. march, jig, reel, etc), or in a more philosophical way, as a quest to find which out the most musical number in the universe.

Let me know (weiwei.chen.uci@gmail.com) if you have any opinions on the effort or the result of the quest!

Minimum Prerequisite to build and run

1. jdk (for running java code) https://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/jdk11-downloads-5066655.html

   MacOS: https://www.chrisjmendez.com/2018/10/14/how-to-install-java-on-osx-using-homebrew/

2. scala-lang (well, since the program is written in Scala) https://www.scala-lang.org/download/

   MacOS: http://sourabhbajaj.com/mac-setup/Scala/README.html

   In case you are not familiar with Scala, Scala is built using Java. Hence the compiled results is a jar file, the same as Java code. Functional programming is really beautiful. You should try it!!

3. sbt (for building scala program) https://www.scala-sbt.org/index.html

   MacOS: https://www.scala-sbt.org/1.x/docs/Installing-sbt-on-Mac.htm0l

Install everything on MacOS (ignore the Spark part): https://medium.freecodecamp.org/installing-scala-and-apache-spark-on-mac-os-837ae57d283f

Scala runs on Java Virtual Machine (JVM), therefore the build/execution environment for this program is platform agnostic. If you use operating systems other than MacOS, install the prerequisites for your platform.

How to build

$ cd MusicalNumbers/
$ sbt assembly

The compiled jar will be target/scala-2.11/MusicalNumbers-assembly-0.0.jar

How to run

$ cd MusicalNumbers/
$ java -jar target/scala-2.11/MusicalNumbers-assembly-0.0.jar \
       -i resources/numbers/the_number_of_pi.txt \
       -t jig -k D -m wrapped -v

Program usage:

$ java -jar target/scala-2.11/MusicalNumbers-assembly-0.0.jar --help 
Musical Numbers 0.0
Usage: MuscialNumbers-X.Y [options]

  -i, --input <value>      Input File Name
  -t, --tunetype <value>   Tune Type, i.e. jig, march, reel
  -k, --key <value>        Tune Key Signature, i.e. C, D, E, F, G, A, B
  -m, --notemapping <value>
                           Note Mapping Strategy, i.e. direct, wrapped
  -r, --rhythmpattern <value>
                           Rhythm Pattern (Support TBD).
  --help                   prints this usage text
  -v, --verbose            verbose is a flag

Program output:

$ java -jar target/scala-2.11/MusicalNumbers-assembly-0.0.jar \
       -i resources/numbers/the_number_of_pi.txt \
       -t jig -k D -m wrapped -v
       
Output File: resources/numbers/the_number_of_pi.abc

X:1
T:The Number Of Pi Jig
M:6/8
L:1/8
R:jig
K:D
DBE BFC|CGF DFB|CAC DCD|BEG CGE|
w: 3 1 4 1 5 9  2 6 5 3 5 8  9 7 9 3 2 3  8 4 6 2 6 4  
DDB DCA|CFA CBB|EBC ABG|CDC CDA:||
w: 3 3 8 3 2 7  9 5 0 2 8 8  4 1 9 7 1 6  9 3 9 9 3 7  
|:FBA FBC|ACA ECE|EFC CDA|ABB GEA|
w: 5 1 0 5 8 2  0 9 7 4 9 4  4 5 9 2 3 0  7 8 1 6 4 0  
GCB GCA|BCC BGC|BAD EBC|FDE CBB:|
w: 6 2 8 6 2 0  8 9 9 8 6 2  8 0 3 4 8 2  5 3 4 2 1 1 

How to check the result

The program outputs the tune in ABC notation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABC_notation

There are many free software for converting ABC notation into sheet music, and some can also generate the MIDI file for listening, such as:

MuseScore: https://musescore.org/en/download (with abc import https://musescore.org/en/project/abc-import)

EasyABC: https://sourceforge.net/projects/easyabc/

A full list of software for ABC notation can be found at: http://abcnotation.com/software

Resources:

The program takes a txt file containing the number sequence as input.

Some of the sample numbers are located at resources/numbers/*.txt. The source of the numbers are from https://apod.nasa.gov/htmltest/rjn_dig.html

TODO

1. It's quite obvious that rhythm is an integral part of a ear-pleasing tune. Hence, the program shall take some rhythm patterns to add some cadence to the tunes.

2. Support for more tune types such as polka, waltz, strathspey, ect.

3. Support for chromatic scales instead of diatonic scales only.

4. Auto generator for number sequences, such as generating first k digits of square root N, square root of an imaginary number?

5. Use different repetition patterns for digits.

6. ...

About

Author: Weiwei Chen (weiwei.chen.uci@gmail.com)

Link: http://www.cecs.uci.edu/~weiweic/