As I came home today, I thought a bit about the factor field that I did before (you can search the archives of the blog, and I’ll also try to find the relevant links later). With Excel, I was able to produce a visual representation of the prime numbers, and that enabled me to see that primes occured next to a “spike” that happened on multiples of 6. On the way home, I decided that it would be nice to hear what that sounded like too. After all, if the spike at 6 was consistent then it should be fairly rhythmic. (Indeed, if we put it into 6/8 time and use 8th notes, the prime numbers should be a nice syncopated rhythm.)
Since I have Cakewalk software, I decided to give it a shot. Since we’re looking at rhythms, I made a simple percussion track. Here is what the prime numbers sound like between 1 and 150 (note that I included 1 as a prime number even though it technically is not) when the prime numbers are snare drum hits and non-primes are silent: Prime Numbers.
Most people will have no problem picking up the rhythm, at least at the beginning. However, it does get kind of muddled toward the end when the primes spread out a bit. The rhythm is easier to pick up if you listen to the non-prime numbers, which I did as a bass drum: Non-Prime Numbers.
And of course if you play both of them together it’s obvious: All Numbers.
Finally, to show the relationship that this has with the six-note “spike” I’ve put a cymbol crash at every 6th note: All Numbers W/6th Note Emphasis.
In the future I’ll have to add a bit more and maybe extend it out beyond the first 150 numbers. Perhaps there will be a pattern that comes out of this too…
