“You see, any aspect of a piece of music can be expressed as a sequence or pattern of numbers,” enthused Richard. “Numbers can express the pitch of notes, the length of notes, patterns of pitches and lengths . . .”
“You mean tunes?,” said Reg
Excerpt From: "Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency" by Douglas Adams.
Funny how work seeps into leisure time especially when I'm trying to not think about spreadsheets and charts and it just randomly pops up in a book. When I started to read it, that I thought couldn't possibly have anything to do with spreadsheets and charts. But alas..
So the subplot of this book is the character named Richard is trying to create music from work-related spreadsheets without much luck.
That got me curious enough to try a little experiment, since there has been music created on Excel but not that I'm aware of, where spreadsheets are turned into sheet music.
Our computer lab happened to have an electronic keyboard waiting to be played.
We created an Excel spreadsheet with fifteen random numbers from one to eighty-eight, the standard number for piano.
Then we copied the high and low notes to the keys of the corresponding numbers. Plotted them out and played them on Robert's electronic keyboard hoping to create some music magic. Below is the spreadsheet, the piano key layout that shows how it was done. And the resulting um..audio.
Spreadsheet:
Keyboard Layout:
Debbie
Wallis and her husband Robert, are owners of AXbean, a guiding light to
all things Microsoft Access and Excel. They reside in the central
valley area of Sacramento, California between agriculture and government
central. When not working, you can see them running about outside,
exploring shops, chowing down at all kinds of eateries and whenever
possible, being more curious than a cat. Find out more at AXbean.com.
Labels: Douglas Adams, Excel, music, music sheet, spreadsheet
