Brownian music
Brownian music is a term coined by Richard F. Voss. In a random
sequence in which each element is randomly chosen from a collection of
pitches, there is no correlation between any two pitches (this could
thus be called ‘white’ music). In ‘Brownian’ music, which simulates
Brownian movement, the pitches are correlated. Brownian movement is the
motion of small particles suspended in a liquid, which execute a
three-dimensional random walk. In a Brownian pitch sequence the
movement is in one dimension: at each step a pitch may change a certain
number of semitones up or down.
The maximum size of a step (in semitones) is set by means of the
up-down arrows. If the maximum size is, for instance, set at 3 the
possible steps are -3, -2 -1, 0, 1, 2, 3. Whether 0 (repetition of the
last pitch) is actually used depends on the setting of the ‘No tone
repeat’ box on the bottom left.
References
Gardner, Martin. Mathematical Games. Scientific American. April 1978,
16–32.
Voss, Richard F., & Clarke, John. " '1/f noise' in Music: Music
From 1/f Noise." Journal of the
Acoustical Society of America. 63, 1978, 258-261.
Brownian.html (last update 7.5.2008)
Created in SeaMonkey
© D.J. Povel, 2008