ARTWORK by Murray Young
Most of these works are mathematical, dealing with fascinating, important and useful concepts; my hope is that these works stimulate an interest in those concepts yet can also be enjoyed by anyone who has no interest in Mathematics whatsoever. The artistic quality here is mediocre at best; I have known at least four people who are better artists than I am so this is not false modesty. The best part of these works are the ideas they play with, ideas to do with music, imagination, culture and philosophy as well as mathematics.
THE MATHEMUSIC SET
- Samurai Princes of Hell
- Horsemen GangHigh Take
- Tango Hate
- High Take
- Days Grace and Dog Night
These works are constructed primarily of convoluted lines of text consisting of the names of musical compositions written in particular patterns of beats. The titles refer only to the number of beats and have nothing to do with the subject matter of the art. I have not been able to look at the sheet music for every single composition here so I talk about beat patterns and they don’t always translate one to one onto time signatures. A work may be written in alternating pairs of 3/4 and 4/4 bars (e.g. ‘Three to Get Ready’ by The Dave Brubeck Quartet) but in saying that it features a fourteen beat repeated pattern I am not incorrect even though the piece isn’t in 14/4 time. At any rate one can usually identify the time signatures correctly by examining the stress patterns (which can be seen along the borders of the art works).
1. SAMURAI PRINCES OF HELL. April 2, 2018. 45.7 cm by 61 cm
In this case the number of beats is seven so all the compositions displayed are written with seven (or a multiple in a few cases) beats per measure. At the top I re-wrote the melody of Greensleeves in 7/4 time (it was originally in 6/4 time). The title of this work refers to the Seven Samurai (an important 1954 Japanese film) and the seven princes of Hell (classified by Peter Binsfield in 1589).
Some of the compositions used in this work (the names in brackets are usually the names of the people who made a notable recording of the composition):
March of the Pigs (Nine Inch Nails), Piano Concerto No. 2 (Dmitri Shostakovich), Money (Pink Floyd), All You Need is Love (The Beatles), Another World of Beasts (Nobuo Uematsu), Blackened (Metallica), Koln Again (Jon Lord of Deep Purple), Desert Island Disk (Radiohead), Estimated Prophet (The Grateful Dead), Oh Happy We (Leonard Bernstein), Passing the Time (Cream), Three’s a Crowd (The Dave Brubeck Quartet), The Dreaming Tree (The Dave Matthews Band), Gravity (A Perfect Circle), Tom Saeyer (Rush) and 106 others.
2. HORSEMEN GANG. March 7, 2018. 45.7 cm by 61 cm
In this case the number of beats is four so all the compositions mentioned are written with four beats per measure. I re-wrote the melody of Greensleeves in 4/4 time at the top. The title of this work refers to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (pestilence, war, famine and death), and to the Gang of Four, who were put on trial for opposing the Cultural Revolution in China in which between 750 000 and 1 500 000 people died.
Some of the compositions used in this work:
Black Day in July (Gordon Lightfoot), Always Look on the Bright Side of Life (Monty Python), Bohemian Rhapsody (Queen), C Jam Blues (Duke Ellington), Concerto in F (George Gershwin), Democracy (Leonard Cohen), A Day in the Life (The Beatles), The End (The Doors), The Revolutionary Etude (Frederic Chopin), God’s Song (Randy Newman), The Internationale (Pottier and de Geyter), Joe Hill (Paul Robeson), Fatha’s Blues (Earl ‘Fatha’ Hines), Kashmir (Led Zeppelin), Jumping Jive (Cab Calloway), Ring the Bells of Morning (Stephen Fearing), Hotel California (The Eagles) and 129 others.
3. TANGO HATE. March 28, 2018. 45.7 cm by 61 cm
In this case the number of beats is two so most of the compositions mentioned are written with two beats per measure. After using beat patterns of two, three (and multiples), four, five (and multiples) and seven (multiples) there were a few interesting though rare time signatures remaining so I used some of them in this piece. At the top I re-wrote the melody of Greensleeves in the unusual time signature of 11/4. The title of this work refers to the expression ‘it takes two to tango’ and to the term Two Minutes Hate made famous in George Orwell’s dystopian novel ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’.
Some compositions used in this work (using two beat patterns unless indicated otherwise):
Colonel Bogey’s March (F.J.Ricketts), The Devil’s Galop (Charles Williams), Elite Syncopations (Scott Joplin), Fugue No. 1 of The Well-Tempered Clavier (J.S. Bach), Sonata Opus 13 / The Pathetique (Ludwig van Beethoven), Turkish March (W.A. Mozart), Medley des Eboulemart (La Bottine Souriante – 18 beats), certain Anglican chants (no time signature), Hey Ya (Outkast – 22 beats), Alap sections introducing ragas in dhrupad singing (no time signature), Birds of Fire (Mahavishnu Orchestra – 18 beats), Eleven Four (The Dave Brubeck Quartet – 11 beats), The Ghostbusters Theme (Ray Parker Jr. – 8 beats), The Irish Washerwoman (Traditional – 12 beats), Promenade from ‘Pictures at an Exhibition’ (Modest Mussorgsky – 11 beats), Variations for Trumpet (Don Ellis – 32 beats), The Ocean (Led Zeppelin – 15, 4 and 2 beats) and 111 others.
4. HIGH TAKE. December 29, 2017. 45.7 cm by 61 cm
In this case the number of beats is five so all the compositions mentioned are written with five (or in a few cases ten) beats per measure. At the top I also re-wrote the melody of Greensleeves in 5/4 time. The title of this work refers to the expressions ‘high five’ and ‘take five’.
Some of the compositions used in this work:
The Isle of the Dead (Sergei Rachmaninoff), Four Sticks (Led Zeppelin), Cafe Paris (Motion Trio), Danse Generale (Maurice Ravel), Do What You LIke (Blind Faith), Mars: Bringer of War (Gustav Holst), Everything in the Right Place (Radiohead – 10 beats), The Fixer (Pearl Jam), Floricanto (Lhasa de Sela), The Grudge (Tool), Take Five (The Dave Brubeck Quartet), Living in the Past (Jethro Tull), Just Like You Imagined (Nine Inch Nails), My Wave (Soundgarden), WTF (OK Go), Innuendo (Queen), Red (King Crimson) and 120 others.
Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and Wizz Jones were non-conformists and part of the Beat Generation (aka The Beat Poets, beatniks).
5. DAYS GRACE AND DOG NIGHT. February 24, 2018. 45.7 cm by 61 cm
In this case the number of beats is three so all the compositions mentioned are written with three (or six or nine) beats per measure. At the top I re-wrote the melody of Greensleeves in 3/4 time. The title of the work refers to the expressions ‘three days grace’ and ‘three dog night’. A three dog night is said to be Australian slang for a night that’s so cold that if you’re stranded in the Outback with your dog team you need to curl up with three dogs to generate enough heat to survive the night.
Some compositions used in this work (with three beat patterns unless otherwise indicated):
The 1812 Overture (Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky), Working Class Hero (John Lennon – 6 beats), Albumblatt / Fur Elise (Ludwig van Beethoven), The Band Played Waltzing Matilda (Eric Bogle), Blue Rondo a la Turk (The Dave Brubeck Quartet – 9 beats in a 2 2 2 3 beat pattern), La Campanella (Franz Liszt – 6 beats), Uncle Son (The Kinks – 6 beats), Cool Cool River (Paul Simon – 9 beats alternating between a 5 4 and a 3 3 3 beat pattern), Crucifiction Lane (Procol Harum – 6 beats), Valentine Moon (Sam Brown and Jools Holland), Funeral March of a Marionette (Charles Gounod), Hyati Inta (Natacha Atlas – 6 beats), Mephistos Hollenrufe Opus 101 (Johann Strauss II), Perfect Strangers (Deep Purple – 9 beats in a 4 3 2 beat pattern), Rebel Waltz (The Clash), Weep for Jamie (Peter, Paul and Mary – 6 beats) and 106 others.
According to The Kidd 