Is there a secret matrix behind music?

Is there a secret matrix behind music?

26 January, 2009 | 12.27PM

• Written by: Terry Church
• Filed under: Music News: max cooper, traum

It sounds like something from a sci-fi movie: mathematicians, having discovered a secret formula behind all good music, are able to produce powerful dancefloor destroyers using only mathematical calculations.

But that is how British DJ and producer Max Cooper plans to approach making music. His latest ‘Harmonisch Serie’ EP for Traum is named after a mathematical modelling research project that he is involved with that aims to explore the evolution of the networks of genes—a sci-art project that combines evolutionary algorithms with music production theory.

In short, a music matrix might actually exist.

“Harmonic Series is an important mathematical and musical concept, describing a repeating pattern of changes to a string of numbers, so that each number on the string is a multiple or divisor of its neighbours,” explains Max Cooper, who recently finished a PhD in genetics and is currently working out of at University College London.

“These sorts of ‘infinite sets’ are used in maths to do things like calculating the number π (pi), and to describe a property of notes in music, which, in addition to their fundamental frequency, tend to have lots of higher (harmonic) frequencies that are divisors of the fundamental, and give each note an audible ‘richness’,” he says.

“So the idea behind ‘Harmonisch Serie’ is that the human concept of what is musically (or artistically) beautiful; is often the result of mathematical properties that are understood at an unconscious level, giving us the feeling that we like the particular piece of music (or art).”

“That’s why chords sound pleasing or not to us in music, because we detect subconsciously how the different frequencies of the notes interact mathematically, finding those chords that fit nicely into one another (in terms of the ratios of frequencies) more pleasing - there’s a lot of complicated maths going on inside your head.”

And indeed, Cooper’s ‘Harmonisch Serie’ EP is full of epic, ambient sounds and gorgeous interwoven harmonies that immediately grab your heart and your feet (listen to a preview in the player below). Imagine the music of Gui Boratto (who is considered a godfather of the modern minimal trance movement), but with much more intricate melodies.

You can almost see the 1s and 0s fly past, and hear millions of numbers crunching as you listen to Cooper’s music.

However, like most sci-fi dreams, the Harmonic Series is “entirely theoretical, so no clones or mutant babies are running about the lab like people get worried about,” jokes Cooper. “It’s just computer based research, modelling how networks of genes evolve. It sounds entirely unrelated to music, but that’s not the case.”

There’s a full interview with Max Cooper about his ‘Harmonisch Serie’ in the Community Feed, courtesy of Traum.

Video: Max Cooper ‘Harmonisch Serie’

• (10) Comments
• (1849) Views
• Get Max Cooper 'Harmonisch Serie' EP