RSSMaker Faire @ IDF Party
Kepler's Orrery
Kepler's Orrery is a generative music system that uses gravity
equations to compose and play ambient music.
On the other hand, Kepler's Orrery is a physics demonstration and
teaching tool that happens to make music. Incorporating a gravity
simulator and interactive world builder, Kepler's Orrery provides a
visual demonstration of the effects of gravity in a fun and engaging
way.
Each simulation starts with a collection of bodies that attract each
other, move, and swirl around under the influence of their mutual
gravity.
When the bodies collide, they make music. Each one is assigned a
melody and an instrument and plays its next note at each collision.
Simulations are set up with "world" files that specify position, mass,
and velocity for each body, as well as their melodies and
instruments, and world metadata that defines simulation parameters
such as step size, modifications to gravitational constants, etc.
The music it makes differs with each world. Sometimes slow and
ambient; sometimes random, sharp, and surprising.
Kepler's Orrery is open source and hosted on java.net:
https://keplers-orrery.dev.java.net/
Web site: http://www.art.net/~simran/GenerativeMusic/Kepler.html
About the Maker(s)
Simran Gleason
Simran Gleason is a sound artist who works in interactive installations, generative music, and composition. He likes to make algorithms that make music based on some aspect of the real world, or in this case, math and physics.
http://www.art.net/simran
