1/f Aspects of Music

White Noise

The simplest example of scaling noise, called white noise, is easy to generate.

Set a range of note durations (for example, whole, half, quarter, eighth, sixteenth),

and a range of tones.

Then use a random number generator to select the duration and tone of each note in sequence.

Except for a uniform change of the duration of the notes, playing this composition at a different speed will give something sounding about the same.

This kind of composition wanders all over the place and does not sound very interesting.

Indeed, some people find these compositions unpleasant: there is no relation of one note to the next, no pattern or familiarity one can perceive.

Yet this was the underlying construction of some of John Cage's stochastic music experiments in the 1960s.

Listen:

Thanks to Harlan Brothers for the midi files of these tunes.

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