Readers may have been following the beautiful interplay of Venus, Mars and Mercury in the evening sky over the last weeks. Looking again at the
2008 almanac from the OP, this musical technique could depict this planetary interplay by taking a 90 degree band of arc covering tropical Leo, Virgo and Libra for the months of August, September and October, and also including Sun, Moon and Saturn in the picture. This band could be spread over four octaves so that each semitone movement represented about 2 degrees of planetary movement, and rendering it in musical format with six instruments, one for each of these celestial bodies.
The following responds to the discussion point raised by Thorkil about serialism.
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Originally Posted by thorkil2
Wiki quote excerpt: "The basis for serial composition is Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique, where the 12 notes of the basic chromatic scale are organized into a row. This "basic" row is then used to create permutations, that is, rows derived from the basic set by reordering its elements. " The Wikipedia description is much too narrow. Serialism originated with 12-tone rows, but has evolved and encompasses much more. The bold print above says it more accurately. You have established a basic set and are building musical structures from it according to a set of rules. That's serialism.
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No, you are wrong. The planetary music I describe does not involve "re-ordering of elements" in the serialist sense, because each element is solely a function of the moving position of a planet, and so is solely determined in relation to the corresponding element in the previous row, and is never 're-ordered' in the serialist sense.
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I could not have stated a better definition of "rationalizing."
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You said previously "The tonal assignments are "designed" but ultimately arbitrary, since they can be designed according to whatever pattern the composer decides to rationalize." This again is a basic misunderstanding, or at least a non sequitur, in that the tonal assignments are determined by nature, ie planetary physics. Choosing the time period and tonal scale etc is arbitrary, but once these functions are chosen the composition writes itself. Your comment could be taken to imply you could make a star map and "arbitrarily" choose to move a star. It is arbitrary what part of the sky an astronomer chooses to point a telescope at, but this does not mean the photo produced is arbitrary. Serialism is arbitrary, this method is not.
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I'm wondering how you intend for a listener to derive information without some up-front knowledge of your musical encoding system. The tonal, dynamic, and rhythmic changes are meaningless unless the listener is provided some context: the composer's "basic set" and the rules by which it is ordered and reordered--and probably perfect pitch as well. The problem I see in the concept (if I'm understanding it correctly) is that your are trying to express empirical data through a medium that is ultimately (and almost exclusively) a medium for evoking emotion. You'll get some emotional response to the sound--for better or worse, but it will evoke no understanding of the solar system without a guidebook. I suggested the graphic accompanyment as one possible way to make the sound meaningful to the observer in the context you've set. But without some context to put it in (more than just titling it Music of the Spheres), it's just sound (that is not to say it won't be interesting sound).
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Yes of course a guidebook is needed, if the intention is scientific rather than artistic. Writing a musical composition called, say, 2008, would require explanation if the listener is to understand that the music correlates to planets. For example, we could have Sun = french horn; Mercury = piccolo; Venus = bassoon; Moon = glockenspiel; Mars = violin; Jupiter = cello; Saturn = moog synthesiser; Uranus = trombone; Neptune = pipe organ; Pluto = electric guitar, or any other chosen orchestration. Because the music is determined by the planets this needs explanation if the listener is to understand the conceptual basis. Given that the chromatic lines might be rather dull in their unadorned state, musicians might even use them as a basis for improvisation.