Category Archives: Sports and games

Connect 4™ music

Connect 4

MIDI-Connect4 is a program that composes music from the unfolding of a board game, Hasbro’s Connect 4.

The system uses evolutionary computation to evolve from scratch a neural network that plays the Connect 4 game. Music is produced when a user plays the game against the system. The system generates music by associating the moves of each player with musical forms (see above).

The program was inspired by a musical event called Reunion, which was conceived by John Cage, Marcel Duchamp, and Teeny Duchamp in 1968, in which sounds were spatially distributed around a concert audience as a chess game unfolded.

This according to “Composition as game strategy: Making music by playing board games against evolved artificial neural networks” by Eduardo Reck Miranda and Qijun Zhang, an article included in Proceedings of the 31st International Computer Music Conference (San Francisco: International Computer Music Association, 2005).

Below, the game’s intrinsic acoustical properties.

Related articles:

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Filed under 20th- and 21st-century music, Curiosities, Science, Sports and games

Vodici: A midwinter swim

In Macedonia the Synaxis of St. John the Baptist on 7 January is celebrated with Vodici, a musical ceremony that involves the high priest throwing a cross into a nearby body of water.

The waters are baptized through this act, but the real attraction is the local youths plunging into the icy water to retrieve the cross. The one who finds it becomes a local hero, and is believed to be blessed for the entire ensuing year.

This according to “Водичарски обреди и водичарско певање у Македонији” (The Vodici ritual and singing in Macedonia) by Rodna Veličkovska in Научни скуп Дани Владе Милошевића: Зборник радова (The conference Dani Vlade Miloševića: Collection of essays; Banja Luka: Akademija Umjetnosti, 2008).

Below, excerpts from the church and waterside ceremonies in Bitola.

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Filed under Europe, Sports and games