22-03-2023, 09:12 PM
(This post was last modified: 22-03-2023, 09:13 PM by davidjackson.)
I don't know a lot about music. But my understanding is at the time we had two types of music, the plain (as in plainchant) and the polyrythmic, which was just starting to come in and which was forcing the development of the five staff bar, which replaced the earlier neumatic notation system.
So I suppose you'd first have to map a "rhythm" onto the VM text and take it from there. See below.
Musical notation was well established by the time of the VM, see ie You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. from c.1330, over a hundred years earlier than the VM but already very identifiable to modern eyes as musical notation.
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An algorithm to convert the Voynich Manuscript into music is an intriguing idea. Here's a suggested approach to accomplish this:
Preprocessing: First, preprocess the transcription to remove any irrelevant characters or symbols. Split the text into paragraphs, lines, and words.
Mapping characters to musical elements: Define a mapping between Voynichese characters and musical elements. Some suggestions:
a. Map each character to a specific pitch or note.
b. Map gallows characters to clefs, key signatures, or accidentals.
c. Map the length of a word to note duration (shorter words have shorter durations, longer words have longer durations).
Chords and harmony: To create chords, you can use a few different strategies:
a. Group consecutive characters in a word and treat them as notes that form a chord.
b. Use a music theory approach to create chords based on the intervals and scales associated with the chosen notes.
Structure and phrasing: Follow these suggestions to define the structure and phrasing of the generated music:
a. Interpret each paragraph as a separate "piece" of music.
b. Interpret each line as a stanza-like unit within the "piece" (but through-composed and non-repeating).
c. Optionally, you can use the frequency of certain word structures to dictate the repetition or variation of musical motifs.
MIDI output: Once the mapping is complete, convert the generated notes, chords, and other musical elements into a MIDI file using a library like mido in Python.
Remember that this is a high-level approach, and you'll need to fine-tune the details depending on the specific patterns and structures you discover in the Voynich Manuscript. The key is to experiment with different mappings and musical interpretations until you find an arrangement that's aurally intelligible and highlights the patterns present in the text.
So I suppose you'd first have to map a "rhythm" onto the VM text and take it from there. See below.
Musical notation was well established by the time of the VM, see ie You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. from c.1330, over a hundred years earlier than the VM but already very identifiable to modern eyes as musical notation.
More on this You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..
An algorithm to convert the Voynich Manuscript into music is an intriguing idea. Here's a suggested approach to accomplish this:
Preprocessing: First, preprocess the transcription to remove any irrelevant characters or symbols. Split the text into paragraphs, lines, and words.
Mapping characters to musical elements: Define a mapping between Voynichese characters and musical elements. Some suggestions:
a. Map each character to a specific pitch or note.
b. Map gallows characters to clefs, key signatures, or accidentals.
c. Map the length of a word to note duration (shorter words have shorter durations, longer words have longer durations).
Chords and harmony: To create chords, you can use a few different strategies:
a. Group consecutive characters in a word and treat them as notes that form a chord.
b. Use a music theory approach to create chords based on the intervals and scales associated with the chosen notes.
Structure and phrasing: Follow these suggestions to define the structure and phrasing of the generated music:
a. Interpret each paragraph as a separate "piece" of music.
b. Interpret each line as a stanza-like unit within the "piece" (but through-composed and non-repeating).
c. Optionally, you can use the frequency of certain word structures to dictate the repetition or variation of musical motifs.
MIDI output: Once the mapping is complete, convert the generated notes, chords, and other musical elements into a MIDI file using a library like mido in Python.
Remember that this is a high-level approach, and you'll need to fine-tune the details depending on the specific patterns and structures you discover in the Voynich Manuscript. The key is to experiment with different mappings and musical interpretations until you find an arrangement that's aurally intelligible and highlights the patterns present in the text.