November 2011

22/11/11

A curious connection between the golden ratio rhythms and the golden ratio pitch interval

Youtube Video

Golden ratio polyrhythm with golden ratio pitch interval

Notice how the beats nearly coincide when they reach successive Fibonacci numbers 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377,

Nate DeBelle recently asked on the Xenharmonic alliance on facebook, what''s special about the golden ratio pitch interval, as a musical interval. "I know some people have done it, but I don''t really understand it. Why actually use the ratio of phi in your tunings? What is the point?" - here is the original post

So anyway that intrigued me, and as a result of following that up have found an intriguing connection between the beating partials of harmonic notes played at the golden ratio interval and the golden ratio polyrhhythm.

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02/11/11

Fibonacci rhythms, sonified pendulum waves, options of interest to instrument tuners, and other new options and bug fixes

Youtube Video

This brings together ideas from Theremin's Rhythmicon and the lovely pendulum waves.

A pendulum wave has pendulums with strings of varying length, which swing back and forth each at a different rate to make these beautiful patterns.

This video uses bouncing balls instead, bouncing at 52, up to 66 beats per measure. Each ball plays one of the harmonics of the harmonic series.

The Fibonacci rhythms are of interest as a new type of rhythm you probably haven't encountered before, a new idea you might find useful.

The harmonic interval trainer / tester and pitch sensitivity tester are of interest for instrument tuners. The interval tester helps you listen to the beats you get when you play two notes together as a chord - with an option to boost selected partials to help you hear the beats more clearly.

The sonified pendulum waves are just fun and cool. You can also play them like the rhythmicon sounding or muting individual parts using the PC Keyboard. So it's an extension of the rhythmicon idea but starting with e.g. 52 beats to a measure instead of 1 beat to a measure.

Also added some new tempo script options, and some other minor features. For details of all this read on.

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