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Fibonacci, the golden ratio and music?


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(taken from investopedia)

 

The Golden Ratio

 

Mathematicians, scientists, and naturalists have known this ratio for years. It's derived from something known as the Fibonacci sequence, named after its Italian founder, Leonardo Fibonacci (whose birth is assumed to be around 1175 AD and death around 1250 AD). Each term in this sequence is simply the sum of the two preceding terms (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, etc.).

 

But this sequence is not all that important; rather, it is the quotient of the adjacent terms that possesses an amazing proportion, roughly 1.618, or its inverse 0.618. This proportion is known by many names: the golden ratio, the golden mean, PHI and the divine proportion, among others. So, why is this number so important? Well, almost everything has dimensional properties that adhere to the ratio of 1.618, so it seems to have a fundamental function for the building blocks of nature.

 

Prove It!

Don't believe it? Take honeybees, for example. If you divide the female bees by the male bees in any given hive, you will get 1.618. Sunflowers, which have opposing spirals of seeds, have a 1.618 ratio between the diameters of each rotation. This same ratio can be seen in relationships between different components throughout nature.

 

Still don't believe it? Need something that's easily measured? Try measuring from your shoulder to your fingertips, and then divide this number by the length from your elbow to your fingertips. Or try measuring from your head to your feet, and divide that by the length from your belly button to your feet. Are the results the same? Somewhere in the area of 1.618? The golden ratio is seemingly unavoidable.

 

 

So then I was wondering if someone ever tried using this golden ratio in making music?

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I haven't personally, but one of my favorite sets of piano music, Première pensée et sonneries de la Rose Croix by Erik Satie, of which this is the third of three pieces (the first, Air de l'Ordre, is, to me, especially breathtaking), was created using the Golden Ratio. I don't know how it was used, because it doesn't immediately seem to be involved in the very austere chord or melody rhythms, but maybe in chord construction.

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I haven't personally, but one of my favorite sets of piano music, Première pensée et sonneries de la Rose Croix by Erik Satie, of which this is the third of three pieces (the first, Air de l'Ordre, is, to me, especially breathtaking), was created using the Golden Ratio. I don't know how it was used, because it doesn't immediately seem to be involved in the very austere chord or melody rhythms, but maybe in chord construction.

 

hehe that's the first idea that struck me as well... although it does sound calm and soothing ;)

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I use it sometimes when it comes to song structures(like buildups with stuff added after 1,1,2,3,5 bars and so on). I also sometimes use it in rythms(like AbAbb or AbbbbAbb(where A is one sound and b another)) I tried using it with frequency ratios, but it sounded bad :P I always wanted to make a song where everything would somehow be connected to the ratio.

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(taken from investopedia)

 

 

 

 

 

So then I was wondering if someone ever tried using this golden ratio in making music?

I just asked about this in class. My professor has a doctorate in music.

She said that people were triing to use the ratio where it did not apply; there was no relation to it and good music.

 

Although architecture and paintings it is used alot.

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You should see this if you haven't yet...

The Fibonacci in Tool - Lateralus.

The time signature of this main riff is 9-8-7, which is the 16th step of the Fibbonacci sequence

I'm sorry but WTF? :lol:
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Here, I found this pdf file (maybe its been posted I haven't read the posts in here yet), and I've no idea what it means, probably because its 3 am and I'm very sleepy: http://www.terugnaar432hz.org/mediapool/65...sicaltuning.pdf :)

 

Edit: Mmhm ok forget about that. Seems the guy who wrote this thinks theres a conspiracy behind the music standard.. okay that's a bit too freaky for a 3 am read lol.

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Here, I found this pdf file (maybe its been posted I haven't read the posts in here yet), and I've no idea what it means, probably because its 3 am and I'm very sleepy: http://www.terugnaar432hz.org/mediapool/65...sicaltuning.pdf :)

 

Edit: Mmhm ok forget about that. Seems the guy who wrote this thinks theres a conspiracy behind the music standard.. okay that's a bit too freaky for a 3 am read lol.

that is some pretty weird stuff that needs to be read. bookmarked :P
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This album by Ubartmar.com might interest you :)

also wanted to post this.

 

i've been told that he used some math in writing the music, not just track names. for example, the first note you hear on the album (a high pitched tone) is a constant. but when you hear it its jut like the pitch changes progressively..

of course im in no position to verify any of this - i havent used maths in 7 years ;)

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