Show HN: Playing Piano with Prime Numbers

(nabraj.com)

5 points | by coffeecoders 3 days ago ago

5 comments

  • vunderba 3 days ago ago

    Nice job. Related, I remember seeing an attempt at mapping primes to minor scales a few years back.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duVyBVNX3D8

    • coffeecoders 3 days ago ago

      Very cool.

      Primes have such an irregular yet structured distribution, and mapping them to pitches is a clever way to make that hidden pattern audible.

      • recursive 3 hours ago ago

        I don't think there's any insight available here. I doubt anyone could distinguish this from an RNG fed into the same algorithm without memorizing.

  • drankl 3 days ago ago

    I wonder how it sounds if you map the primes straight onto Hz instead of piano scales.

    • coffeecoders 3 days ago ago

      It won't be a musical scale if mapped directly to Hz (maybe sine wave mapping?).

      For example, prime 2 → 2 Hz (inaudible), 101 → 101 Hz (deep bass), 1009 → ~1 kHz (bright tone).

      Right now the app just maps primes to MIDI notes so they sit nicely on a piano.