RE: [microsound] Fibonacci in music

[Richard Zvonar <zvonar@xxxxxxxxxx>]

At 11:06 AM -0600 3/21/05, David Powers wrote:
>Well, I don't know if you can "wear out" something that may not be 
>directly accessible to the listener...  Composers often find 
>inspiration from engaging in rather arbitrary mathematical games 
>(fibonacci, but also serialism, fugue, canon, etc.).  I think the 
>real question is whether such techniques are useful springboards for 
>the composer's imagination.

The Fibonacci series is also a natural phenomenon that gives shape to 
many living things and that forms the basis for the Golden 
Proportion. Humans seem to find this proportion universally pleasing 
and therefore the use of Fibonacci proportions is a natural and easy 
way to create structures that "work" aesthetically.


P.S. The Fibonacci series (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21...) is formed by 
adding two consecutive terms to derive the next term in the series 
(therefore 13 + 21 gives the next term 34). The Golden Mean (or 
Golden Proportion or Ratio) may be approximated by dividing 
consecutive Fibonacci numbers (13/21 = 0.61905..., 21/13 = 
1.61538...).

The higher up the series the closer the approximation to the 
proportion, which is commonly represented as "phi" and equals 
1.6180339887499... or -0.61803398874989...  For more details and an 
explanation of why phi has two values, see:

http://www.vashti.net/mceinc/golden.htm
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Richard Zvonar, PhD
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