ryan rapsys :: composer, producer, musician, filmmaker

And this weeks Sonic Scultpure:

2008: 53 Sonic Sculptures – 4. January IV [2 min 0 sec, 1.83mb mp3]

For this composition, I decided to mess around with a little math. First, I decided on how to mathematically structure this music. I decided on it being 2 minutes (or 120 seconds) long. From there, I derived the main “climax” of the work by applying the mathematics of the Golden Ratio (more info here), which resulted in a timing of 74.166 seconds for its occurance. From there, I continued dividing the remaining first large section down into two more sections, using the same idea of the Golden Ratio. This led to: 45.838 seconds, 28.330 seconds, 17.509 seconds, etc. down to 0.033 seconds.

Next, I created two base tones to sound out continuously throughout the 2 minute duration of the piece. I selected the tones of 255Hz and 215Hz, one projected from the left speaker, the other from the right speaker. The 255Hz tone starts at 255Hz and gradually decreases in Hz until it reaches 215Hz at exactly 120 seconds from the beginning, the very conclusion. This creates a mean tone of 235Hz with an additional resulting beat at around 40Hz at the beginning, gradually ending at 215Hz with an additional resulting beat at 0Hz. According to some information found here, the beating would resonate with Gamma brain wave frequencies (anxiety, problem solving, etc.) and gradually shift to Delta brain waves (deep sleep).

Once this psychological ostinato was in place, I began placing increasingly longer sections of a tone set at 107.5Hz (the next lower octave companion to the unchange base tone of 215Hz) at the corresponding timings derived through the Golden Ratio. These also slightly diminish in volume through the work and eventually fade with the connecting tones at the conclusion.

In reality, this work certainly pushes the definition of a sonic “sculpture” since it is very systematically (or algorthmically or possibly even stachostically) created rather than “sculpted,” but I think it still will work well in this ongoing series, and certainly shows my strange interest in mathematics and music currently. Please feel free to leave comments about this piece, especially if you feel you had any slight bit of psychological reaction to the work.

Of course, this is best heard with good stereo headphones. Please, enjoy.