Here is the link for the Ionian Tusk of the Daywalker geocache itself.

Okay, that's just disturbing. You Canadians are weird.

How about this, though. What other places in the world can we find interesting musical cyphers, or other stuff where the notes come from something patterned or numerical (rather than straight from a musician's imagination)?

I can't think of many. There's a Bela Fleck piece called "UFO Tofu" where he tries to do some musical palindrones (the title of the piece is a palindrone). Anyone else?

How about this, though. What other places in the world can we find interesting musical cyphers, or other stuff where the notes come from something patterned or numerical (rather than straight from a musician's imagination)?

Well, GEB is full of that sort of stuff, but I'm sure you knew that...

Peter

I can't think of many. There's a Bela Fleck piece called "UFO Tofu" where he tries to do some musical palindrones (the title of the piece is a palindrone). Anyone else?

I think the melodies in ELO's "Fire on HIgh" are supposed to be reversible. There's even some backwards speech in the beginning that tells the listener "The music is reversible... turn back, turn back" or something like that.

Holst's The Planets septology is supposed to be based on the apparent motions of the respective planets.

YYZ? Oh, Rush is Canadian.

Oh, and Bach did write a piece with a melody based on his name (using "Bb" for H), which is no simple feat being as that puts all four notes as half steps from one another.

Oh yeah, duh, the morse-code thing.

Anything else?

Oh, and Bach did write a piece with a melody based on his name (using "Bb" for H), which is no simple feat being as that puts all four notes as half steps from one another.

Seems to me H should have been represented as G#.

As I remember it (being a couple if years since college) "H" was not an unheard of representation for Bb. I suppose since Bb is the "first" flat and therefore very typical it made a sense. If I were writing a piece with the noetes A B C and ?, I certainly would have picked G#, since then you'd be easily in the key of a harmonic minor.

Ah, ok, I only took beginner's music theory at Penn State, so I didn't know "H" was typically used to indicate Bb. I was just thinking like a comp. sci. guy, as in "the letter G plus one letter is H, so the note H should equivalent be G plus a half step."

Yup, all taken care of. I'll test the "solution" in a few weeks when some friends come to visit.

Cheers!

is it just me, or is Gustav Holst's Mars : The Bringer of War the music in world 8 of Super Mario 3?
also, not the motions of the planets, if this site has anything accurate on it.

s it just me, or is Gustav Holst's Mars : The Bringer of War the music in world 8 of Super Mario 3?

It is the music John Williams borrowed from/ was inspired by for the Star Wars theme.

imperial death march?
i believe that and the star wars theme are two completely different animals

Not just the imperial death march, though certainly not the first notes everyone regards as the theme. I should have stated more "the music of Star Wars", with the imperial death march being an obvious example. There are other, more subtle instances, however. I'm pretty sure that JW had no problem admitting to the inspiration.

I can't think of many. There's a Bela Fleck piece called "UFO Tofu" where he tries to do some musical palindrones

Here I was all set to congratulate you for being the first person to use the really interesting word "palindrome" (BTW, it's spelled with an "m" not an "n") on the bbs, but somebody beat you to it (and spelled it right!) more than three years ago!

Oh, well, better luck next time!

tanstaafl.

Ah, ok, I only took beginner's music theory at Penn State, so I didn't know "H" was typically used to indicate Bb. I was just thinking like a comp. sci. guy, as in "the letter G plus one letter is H, so the note H should equivalent be G plus a half step."

And right you are. There are several systems. The anglo-saxon system, if I remember correctly, is based on the french/italian one, and uses Bb. The germans, being logical, as always, used H.

Nothing like unearthing a month-old post just to be pedantic....
But I am kind of behind on my BBS reading.

I just wanted to correct a few mis-statements in this thread.

1. The German system actually uses "B" to represent what we call B-flat, and it uses "H" to represent what we call B (not B-flat as was stated here).
So much for the vaunted German logic. Looks like it was on vacation for a while, as having the note "H" come between "B" and "C" isn't too logical. (I know, I know it actually makes some sense if you know the history behind it.)

2. C9 means add the dominant 7 and the 9.
Cadd9 specifically means do NOT add the 7th.

3. sus2 DOES mean to omit the 3rd, while 9 and add9 mean "do not omit the 3rd"
Sure, if you're a keyboard player, feel free to throw the 3rd into a sus2, but realize that you're actually making a slight chord substitution. (Which is cool, musical rules are meant to be understood, then broken with impunity. For example, classical counterpoint says "no parallel fifths EVER" while hard rock is built almost ENTIRELY on parallel fifth "power chords.")

/music

P.S. Hey look everybody! After two years of casual posting, I'm finally a "member." (Insert Beavis laugh here.)
At this rate, only two more years until I get "enthused."

Well crap, I guess I was just about wrong on all counts. Guess I've forgotten more than I thought sence college. Now that you say about the "B", "Bb", "H" stuff, I remember all of that. But I never realized there was a difference between Cadd9 and C9, I just assumed that C9 was short for Cadd9.

As for parallel fifths, it is true that hard rock is built on parallel fifths, but I still try to avoid them when writing vocal haronies. I think the key is recognizing the effect that "breaking the rules has" and doing it when you want to achive something specific. As it turns out, parallel fifthing is something that defines the rock sound (at least for guitars).

Guess I've forgotten more than I thought sence college.

And spelling has deteriorated as well.

Rock'n'roll piano's pretty well built around it, too. Cf. Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard.