Music Based on Fibonacci Sequence and Stock Market

Gary Franczyk writes "A band named Emerald Suspension has made an album named Playing the Market that is, as they put it: "structured based on patterns created by the stock market, economic indicators, algorithms". They have some songs based off of the Fibonacci sequence, the misery and consumer confidence indices, and the national debt. "

Some people

[Timesprout]

really need to get out more

Nice idea, but...

[original_nickname]

The first one sounds kind of like Pyramid Song by radiohead, but really this data doesn't make great music. You can make disjointed noise easily enough, and I'd guess no-one has any pressing need to listen to the stock market.

Maybe Philip Glass could make a symphony out of this stuff, but these guys unfortunately can't (from the samples). It isn't musical enough to not be background noise.

Experimental: yes, music: no.

Interesting idea, though. I think this could make a great backing noise to a Godspeed You Black Emperor! song or something.

Incorrect

[Moth7]

It was clearly stated as being based on various patterns. As such it is anything but random. Could people please stop moderating based on opinions and start looking a little more objectively? A fallacy isn't insightful by any means.

Define Musical

[Moth7]

I think Einstürzende Neubauten would beg to differ.

So they would be...

[Moth7]

The ones posting slashdot comments demonstrating an ignorance of the subject matter?

I don't like this

[babbling]

This is a bit like reality TV. No planning involved, just get some equipment and see what happens automatically. The result is something that consumers will consume, but it isn't high in quality, just cheap to produce.

I want television shows with scripts and plots.
I want music that has been carefully composed and made to sound good.

Re:Incorrect

[LiquidCoooled]

I thought it was proven that the stock market figures were self similar and fractal in nature.

That is, if I display a graph of results but neglect to indicate the scale, it could apply to any scale from seconds to days to years.

Its like looking at a coastline, from 100miles up it has rough egds and curly bits just like if your looking from 1 metre up on the beach.

Re:I don't like this

[prichardson]

Just because you start within a system does not make your music random. I don't know how their algorithms worked but they certainly made aesthetic choices.

Every composer starts within some system, and these can of varying degrees of confinement. Most pop music uses the system of I, IV, and V chords and the form of verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus. Mozart used the system know as tonality to compose, and he used many classical forms. Schoenberg used the system of serialism, one that he invented. Serialism is of course a more restrictive system than tonality, but in both you make many many many choices.

These guys just invented their own system, and unless they write about their compositional process we can't know how restrictive their system is or what aesthetic choices they made.

It's certainly understandable to not like this music, however you must at least respect it. I'm guessing these guys worked a lot harder on this album than most pop stars work on their stuff. If you've been listening to classical and early romantic music or top 40 all your life this sounds really foreign; that can be disturbing, but don't dismiss them because you don't like it.

Just out of curiosity, what music do you like? Don't just say 'rock' or 'classical' (both oft-abused terms), be specific.

Band? Songs?

[Illbay]

Why does everything have to be put in terms of the pop music ethos?

Why do we not read, rather, that "an ensemble has created compositions" based on...(etc.)

Varèse [wikipedia.org], Stockhausen [wikipedia.org], Cage [wikipedia.org] and Penderecki [wikipedia.org] were creating their works long before pop musicians ever tried "going serious," after all.