The Arithmetic of Tool's Music

[Yeshuasdaughter]

There's something about a Fibonacci sequence in music. It grips and hypnotizes me, I feel the melody and rhythm in my bones. It inspires my imagination to flow with the round feeling of the music as it flows up and down like water.

I used to be a very big fan of Tool for this reason. I'm on YouTube right now, reminiscing. Aenima was a very good album.

There's something else about a Fibonacci sequence in a song. It attracts animals. No.. I'm not being new agey or mental, I'm serious. Even if it's heavy metal. It brings them near. Birds, mammals, etc in the deep woods. I used to live on the Oregon Coast, in a forest, and I would play Tool and Bull Elk would come up to my window. Often mothers and calves too. It would attract crows quite frequently as well. Other animals like Possums, Raccoons, Coyotes, etc love it too.

They elk would kind of cock their heads and listen to the music, very close to my bedroom window, where it was playing.

I have learned a way to sing to wildlife to bring them close, following the basic idea of the Fibonacci sequence. It's a soft, up and down, whispering undulation that attracts animals and holds them rapt, watching you as you sing. I've taught it to my daughter as well, and she's getting better and better at it, able to attract and tame wild animals too.

I think the melodies of Native American singing has a lot to do with this principle. I can imagine someone, centuries ago, walking through the wilderness, singing softly, to let the animals know they are passing through, and that they are an ally, not a threat at all.

I am not a good singer and my voice cracks when I sing sometimes, but this method of up and down, mathematical music, it soothes animals and helps them to trust you. It works for unbroken horses too.

 

[Luca]

This is one of the reasons I’m so drawn to ethnic music and folk music, and percussive instruments.

 

[Forest Cat]

Tool kicks butt all day long

 

[Knower of nothing]

I'm curious in what shape the Fibonacci sequence shows up in the music (or in something like singing), can you explain?

 

[Giovanni]

Fibonacci is everywhere, and music hits your unconscious side, there are tons of math applications exploiting the Fibonacci sequence

 

[Knower of nothing]

Right but I've looked for some specific examples and most of the examples I see aren't things I'd suspect animals to be too receptive to. Things like new passages starting on the measures based on the fibonacci sequence or the fact a piano octave is 8 notes and 5 flats (which is a stretch in many ways if you're familiar but I'll let it slide.)
Others seem more relevant. I've found the frequency ratios of 1:1 1:2 2:3 3:5 and 5:8 as those are a few of the common Just Intonation tones (a tuning largely fallen out of style and many people would find hard on the ears today. It's also limited to one key without a complete change in tonal character), but I'm telling you now no one focuses their music on those fibonacci intervals in direct order nor does it work if it goes much further because 8:13 already falls outside of the scale, you'll be playing some fancy harsh microtonal stuff. And I do believe the second you include other tones it's arbitrary to point out the ones that COULD fit a fibonacci sequence as being more relevant than all the ones that don't. You'll lack minor and major thirds for example.
Anyway that's why I'd love some specifics from someone actually seeing results, I'd like to know what they're doing with their voice and how it relates to the sequence. I'd love to experiment with it myself.

 

[Yeshuasdaughter]

Shape was a bad way of explaining it. As an aspie, I can "feel" music when it's composed in mathematical harmony. It just sort of rises and falls, I guess, and it feels like parabolic waves rising up and down or spiraling back to where it started, like a circle. I can sort of "feel" the equation. It's one of my aspie superpowers, I guess.

Fibonacci sequences are very common in classical music as well.

 

[Slim Jim]

I would expect to find this In Classical Musical a lot.

 

[Knower of nothing]

Shape was a bad way of explaining it. As an aspie, I can "feel" music when it's composed in mathematical harmony. It just sort of rises and falls, I guess, and it feels like parabolic waves rising up and down or spiraling back to where it started, like a circle. I can sort of "feel" the equation. It's one of my aspie superpowers, I guess.

Fibonacci sequences are very common in classical music as well.

Circle might be right because now I'm suspecting you are thinking of classic cadences. Or perhaps a sine wave in terms of dynamics/progression? Either way I'd be careful in forcing links to ideas without keeping them at strict hypothesis level. It's important to not underestimate the amount of understanding we lack in regards to animal behavior and our own emotional responses to music, many of which are cultural more than innate. I generally dislike when people seek to apply natural law to elevate their own aesthetic judgment. Up until the recent past music was always trapped in this view of needing to be made the RIGHT way; so perhaps I'm too touchy in fear of ideas that could revive that restrictive history.

 

[Giovanni]

I am a bach fan, and I guess that we should divide the music as harmony from the fibonacci sequence that is one of the thousands combinatorics possibilities.
One of the spectrum characteristic is that one does not want to be surprised, that thrive in the routine, in this sense there is an higher than average predictability in the Fibonacci sequence. But the concept of music is related to surprise. Another observation the twelve semitones and the scales are artificial, last one is that the concept of harmony at my advice is based from the tonic and dominant, that suggest unexpected dynamism in the execution, also the fifth and fourth interval suggest to me some fibonacci but not sure how

 

[Forest Cat]

Waiting.. waiting

 

[Yeshuasdaughter]

Those of you who know about music theory, I am in awe. I can barely read music to play the piano, but I love it very much.

I wish I knew more about the science behind music. It's fun to learn from you all.