Thank you to Amy Goodall and Karina Rassulli who researched, contributed to and presented this project!
The Digital MozArt at the Mozilla Festival 2016
West London Arts Scene presented The Digital MozArt at the recent MozFest.
MozFest is an annual celebration to explore the future of the open Web. Over 2000 people came from all over the world to Ravensbourne. on the O2 site at North Greenwich. The festival is organised by Mozilla which powers the Firefox website.
We were selected to take part by Arts Award who ran the Digital Arts and Culture section.
The Digital MozArt was one of the few musically focused events at MozFest and the game was a real novelty.
The project was inspired by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, 18th century composer and inventor of a clever game throwing dice to compose a piece of music, now digitally updated by West London Arts Scene for the 21st century.
Read on find out more about how the game was played.
There are 176 bars / examples in the Table de Musique.
How many pieces can be made out of these?
You write a piece using this system but then you swap bars around.
Will the piece still sound good?
Can you see any patterns in the musical notation or in the coded version which have a particular order?
How would you make your OWN grid to make many pieces?
Would use the style as Mozart or would you use a different style?
A new Waltz made from Mozart's Dice Game
C C F G C
I I IV V I
b.add(0.0, [ N("c2", 0.5) , N("c2", 0.5) , N("c2", 0.5) ])
b.add(0.0, [ N("c2", 0.5) , N("c2", 0.5) , N("c2", 0.5) ])
b.add(0.0, [ N("f2", 1.0) , N("g2", 0.5) ])
b.add(0.0, [ N("c2", 0.5) , N("g1", 0.5) ] , N("c1". 0.5])
Three ways to show the final part of the fundamental bass-line.
Mozart's original Dice Game
We are not absolutely sure that the 18th century Dice Game was created by Mozart. However he was also reputed to have written a trio for piano, clarinet and viola while he was playing skittles so it is quite nice to think of him regularly indulging in some not-so-musical fun.
The game starts with a grid of apparently randomly chosen numbers and two dice (see left).
Throw the dice and add up the two numbers (say, 11).
Find the number (say, 11) to the left side of the grid.
Look beside it in column A and you will find 3 (the columns are named at the top of the grid).
Find 3 in the Table de Musique (scroll down and see below).
This is the first bar of your piece!
Throw the dice again and add up the two numbers (say, 6).
Find the 6 on the left side of the grid but now look in column B.
Now you will find 74 on the Table de Musique.
This is the second bar of your piece!!
Continue the process until you have worked through both sections of the grid to make a piece that is 16 bars long.
There will be a repeat bar in the middle - you will have to think about this!
Now it's time to get into the 21st century and start working out some coding.
Python?
A clue:
b = B(0.0, [ N("g4", 0.5) , N("c4", 0.5) , N("e4", 0.5) ], 3)
b.add(0.0, [ N("e2", 1.0) , N("rest", 0.5) ])
b.add(0.0, [ N("c2", 1.0) , N("rest", 0.5) ])
self.bars.append(b)
This is a way to code the first bar, 3 on the grid.
What would Mozart have made of this?
Come and join us to find out a whole lot more!
Go to Contact.
