In a recent appearance on the TED stage, mathematician Scott Rickard debuted the first ever pattern free piano sonata during his talk titled The Beautiful Math Behind The Ugliest Music.
That’s right – the world’s ugliest music. But what exactly does that mean? What makes music ugly or beautiful – and who gets to decide, anyway?
Rickard proposes that the very thing that makes music beautiful is repetition: expectation for repetition builds throughout a song or composition, and can respond with either a denial or realisation of the expected repetition. He makes the point early that creating pattern free music is not the same as randomness. It is based off a complex mathematical equation called the Costa Array used primarily in sonar.
For those like me who are a little bit number illiterate, don’t fear. Rickard explains the theory in an elementary way that translates even to the novice. Walking through the historical background of how such a piece came to exist, he brings us to an 88×88 grid, which can be paired with the 88 keys on a piano to create the sonata.
As the music is delivered for the first time Rickard jokes that it is “music only a mathematician could write.” It brings on a sense of discomfort much like the jilted clashes of a horror movie soundtrack. An occasional sound or reverberation jumps out but as you look for something to cling to, you are thrown back into the disarray.
The study is a fascinating look not only at the mathematics of music, but the creative process itself, and what compels listeners to identify with certain songs. Rickard implores the audience as they listen to “try and find some repetition, try and find something you enjoy, then revel in the fact that you won’t find it.”
You can check out the whole talk below: