Conway's Game of Life as a Musical Instrument

Using the most famous cellular automaton (Conway's Game of Life) to generate music.
We experiment with different note layouts and starting patterns to produce a variety of musical results.
0:00 Conway's Game of Life
1:38 Game of Life as a Musical Instrument
3:01 Thinning strategies
4:51 Midweight Spaceship (MWSS), harmonic minor
5:18 Heavyweight Spaceship (HWSS), major pentatonic
5:43 Glider, melodic minor (ascending)
6:12 Loafer, major scale
7:22 31P8H4V0, melodic minor (ascending)
8:00 Canada Goose, major scale
8:40 Table, major 13 chord
8:52 Table, major pentatonic
9:01 Twin Bees Shuttle Spark, melodic minor (ascending)
9:11 Z-hexomino, harmonic minor
9:30 Die hard, harmonic minor
10:17 Octagon 2, major scale
10:35 Pinwheel, major scale
10:55 Figure eight, melodic minor (ascending)
11:17 Pentadecathlon, major scale
11:40 T-tetromino, major scale
These visualizations were written in Java using the Processing graphical library (processing.org). The audio was generated using Java's built-in MIDI library (javax.sound.midi).
Life Lexicon: conwaylife.com/ref/lexicon/le...
________
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#music #math #cellularautomata #gameoflife #conway #computermusic #algorithmicmusic #algorithmiccomposition #patterns #algorithm #computerscience

[@fossfeen]

PLEASE turn this into an interactive website

[@flingyourself]

I second this!!!

[@victork8708]

google cardinal...

[@daniel_77.]

Or atleast a program

[@hwithumlaut8288]

Please

[@MINECRAFTLOVER4000]

​@@victork8708?

[@aelius5]

“What instrument do you play?” “It’s complicated…”

[@paper177]

Is conway's game of life an instrument?

[@fryz]

@@paper177idk is mayonnaise?

[@666thmoab]

@@fryzis horse radish?

[@jay31415]

Life. I play life.

[@RailsofForney]

Maybe I should just stick to playing euphonium…

[@user-vh1tb8ch2u]

“What instrument doth thou playeth” “Life.” “Life?” “Life..”

[@paper177]

I shall playeth thy musical instrument. *Life.*

[@relito_animations]

Roulx Kaard (deltarune) be like:

[@AdmiralGordon]

Cruelty squad ass comment

[@elemenopi9239]

WHAT DOTH LIFE

[@PrussiaCountryballs]

Tis thy shall not comprehend the sound of which I make

[@CastleKale]

Pattern loafer made me think of a walk through a claymation fall forest.

[@confused-as-ell]

i like loafer, it sounds very peaceful

[@paper177]

especially when the bass notes mix in with the high notes 😔

[@jacksongreen4107]

It reminds me of Minecraft music for some reason.

[@juliatorre8803]

Christmas-y almost

[@baructort]

it would be cool to space them out differently so it’s not a note per beat

[@cobaltbluesky2276]

i love the repeating patterns the oscillators make, especially at 9:42, it would be cool to see a full song made using a lot of these patterns in combination like loops

[@therealelement75]

uhhhh, die hard is a spark

[@ssserani]

6:13 the loafer sounds the best to me, works really well as a 7/8 pattern

[@prismix0870]

Oh yeah it is in 7 lol, i didnt notice. Octagon 2 is in 5

[@roachroachin7193]

So, is life jazz?

[@Goatey523]

Always has been

[@filedotjar]

I really like the motif at 4:55, it sounds very Lavender Town esque.

[@filedotjar]

You then get a happier version at 5:21

[@anderaginaga2]

​@@filedotjar4:55 is original Lavender Town bgm, 5:21 is Lavender Town in second gen games

[@pixelcore5417]

Can you PLEASE just make like. 3 hours of this or something I have insomnia and can never sleep I’m commenting this at 3AM I would fall asleep maybe within an hour with this thank you so so much for making this awesome video to begin with though!

[@eggsbox]

yessss this

[@linkshadow2]

I second this, but because my cat really likes it a lot and has my play it 🥹 it makes her super calm

[@TheCloudyoshi]

Other ideas - - it feels like we're arbitrarily picking an axis when we define the "strings" and "higher" notes, when the game doesn't really care what direction your objects are moving... - so, maybe define the pitches that play based on the number of neighbors, e.g. if a cell has 0-1 neighbors it plays C - could also define the pitches by the "direction" of the neighbors used to create a newborn cell - could also define them recursively from the prior set of pitches that play, in an attempt to create cohesive melody lines - play a note when a cell dies, not just when one is born

[@recurvestickerdragon]

Yeah, it feels like the variance we're seeing is coming more from the stripey pattern underneath rather than the actual shapes moving across it. Would be neat to see one based on the "speed" of movement, though I suppose that would be hard to measure,

[@Jeff-ss6qt]

​​​@@recurvestickerdragonMaybe measure speed by how many generations a cell lives? You might have to play the simulation a fair amount ahead to find out though. At least depending on what you to with thay speed. Like, would it be a simple scale that goes up with each generation or a specific note based on how long the cell lives in the simulation that is played ahead? How would you deal with a cell with an infinitely slow speed due to staying alive 100% of the time? There's always a chance of something else hitting it or never hitting it.

[@kschumacher5533]

My grandfather just died and my grandma is on the way out. This comforts me somehow.

[@obonyxiam]

i'm sorry for your loss

[@AJLord]

[Sending virtual hug...] [Hug sent!]

[@Skhal]

Why talk about this here? I never understand people who says private thing like this on KZbin? Wtf is wrong with humanity? This is about square making music, not a book about private life of random people

[@arnoudh6203]

​@@SkhalSaying that music is somehow comforting in their situation is related to the video. Also, people do it to vent. Caring about privacy is only necessary when there are people that can use the private information to do harm which is (unusually) not the case on the internet.

[@gjk-arts5855]

@@Skhal It's a comment, a feeling or thought they had while watching the video & music can often create feelings within people - sometimes comforting ones and hey, it's always nice to get some words of comfort from strangers. When that happens, it actually shows the better part of humanity. That we can all unite together just to make someone we barely even know, but we know are struggling, feel a little better. And, who knows. maybe someone out there is struggling with something similar and happened to click on the video and feels the same way- It's also nice to know… that you're not alone.

[@PCBoyStudios]

10:17 Is that a… 5/8 time signature loop? Geez…

[@sleepyheadmemes]

Alternating 4/4 and 7/8 (or just 15/8) at 11:17

[@Gelatinocyte2]

*5/4. It has 5 whole beats; a 5/8 would be more like lopsided 2 beats (one whole beat + one slightly longer beat), or a rushed 3 beats (2 whole beats + one half-beat). Although, you can kind of feel it as a 5/8, with the 1st and 3rd beats emphasized.

[@BlackMoonMaster]

This is honestly million-dollar content. Keep going.

[@dzek_thefriend]

2:49 it's literally miracle musical dream sweet in sea major "children born in one emotion"

[@mrtomithy]

hello fellow miracle musical enjoyer

[@dzek_thefriend]

@@mrtomithy it warms my heart to see others who enjoy this project. May your days be many and you woes few

[@dion8895]

R-pentomino got robbed of a solo. Damn politics

[@donaldcreswell4915]

Loafer and table major pentatonic were bangers

[@SquishmallowsUnited]

8:53 this actually sounds cool like if it were a melody to a song

[@donaldcreswell4915]

It'd make a good ringtone

[@veryvaughsome5867]

Loafer is my favorite one here. I love the sound of it!

[@glenmorrison8080]

So many of these patterns sound like really interesting jazz compositions. I love this.

[@benjames9158]

5:18 goes hard

[@linearstream]

7:23 Stunningly complex sound. Amazing.

[@xpotential]

it's like running away while panicking

[@gilejoksimovic3168]

Have you ever considered applying the circle of fifths for the layout?

[@sam_bamalam]

I was thinking the same! Fifths on one axis, fourths on the other

[@kuretaxyz]

fifths and major thirds would be great.

[@PCBoyStudios]

10:35 Hmm, that's a fancy way to play your A#maj9…

[@michaeldeloatch7461]

@ 5:48 -- You have invented the cyber-Bartok!

[@jonahbranch5625]

You could try mapping 2d to a scale using the Hilbert curve. Cells next to each other will tend to be close on the scale, but you would get occasional jumps and interesting intervals

[@blakelockley3367]

id love to see this too

[@kostibulished]

Man, that harmonic minor die hard is haunting, I love it! It does seem like the synth volume is clipping quite a bit though, so it sounds a bit harsh. I'd love to hear a cleaner version!

[@linearstream]

Unreal. Love that one.

[@thegeeeeeeeeee]

Die hard in harmonic minor was lit. 🔥 you make amazing videos man.

[@JavaJack59]

Random ideas: 1) Use the number of non-triggering cells on a string as velocity 2) Langton's Ant :)

[@laurentmarcoux2144]

i've been a life enthusiast for some time now and I think this is a brilliant idea. I want to try every pattern with this, please do make an interactive website from this !

[@Thaumh]

Amusingly, ironically, this reminds me quite a lot of the SPORE game soundtrack, specifically of the Cell Stage.

[@CptSDX23]

This would be a great way to get inspiration for music. I can imagine some of these as video game tracks

[@ImpossibleEvan]

I love how the 2 notes on 5:50 glider look like they are swimming

[@dizfoster8726]

I’ve been fascinated by the patterns the Game of Life makes for some time and yet this is the first time I saw it being used in such an unmodified state to output a signal like this. Lots to think on.

[@spoonnerz]

This is amazing. Would love to get my hands on this and play with it a little. I think it would be cool to have a system in which cells that are not newborn continue to ring. This would create interesting drones in patterns that contain statics and moving objects.

[@jickhertz4124]

this is really cool! The detailed visuals is what makes it for me: colored tiles, tile labeling, generation counter, live 'piano', clear labeling. It no doubt took a lot of effort to code or edit the beautiful displays but as a viewer I find they make the video much more enjoyable!

[@Rapidfire370]

My favorites were die hard, loafer and pentadecathlon, especially loafer, it feels like it's a real song

[@sam_bamalam]

3 Blue 1 Brown did a video about using space filling curves to assign frequencies to visual data at different resolutions. I think that there's a really cool intersection of those ideas to be explored!

[@teaarson]

I actually really like the sound of 3:10, it makes my head feel empty like brown noise.

[@mr_flor]

Loafer sounded amazing! 8:52 this really reminds me of Fallen Down and scp 3008 theme, wow

[@SforzandoSongs]

Amazing! You should map rhythm next, simplest being a sustain with steady decay for the whole lifespan of the cell. You could also have a floor where a minimum lifespan yields a the shortest duration for a much sparser, less plodding texture (e.g. 3 generations = 16th note). The visuals would be overwhelming as binary on/off, but might be really cool with some fade in/fade out effects.

[@Germancheesecakefactory]

sounds like a soundtrack for an niche indie rpgmaker game

[@epsilonthedragon1249]

The Pinwheel was beautiful

[@AlanKey86]

My favourite is at 10:19 This is a great concept

[@jodamoxghesta4395]

If only John Conway could listen to this...

[@kawaiiintelligenceagency3889]

Awesome idea to turn the game of life into music. It sounds very interesting. I think it can be improved by adding rules for tempo / duration perhaps. But I already like it how it is

[@AJLord]

10:56 the figure eight reminds me of vs. susie from deltarune similar note progression, just in a higher key

[@SquishmallowsUnited]

oh my goodness gracious... i want to play with this so bad

[@jonhycoincoin]

This is reaaally great content ! I think it would be cool to add strategies to have variations on the rythm ! That could make the thing more "musical"

[@skilz8098]

How about an alternative approach: instead of using Conway's Game of Life to act as an instrument that plays different sounds based on it's locality (space & time) of each iteration, how about having the application generate Cells in Conway's Game of Life based on reading an audio file either it being a wav, a midi, or even an mp3 type file. Then we can feed the game with a given piece of audio such as a song and see how it would look within the context of Conway's Game of Life. With something like this, the time it takes for each iteration to occur would depend on the tempo of intended audio segment. This would also be very interesting to see.

[@thepotatotaxi2430]

yeah because that's possible to implement 🤦‍♂️

[@thepearlking4417]

Loved the tables.

[@circuitguy1010]

Life is music.

[@paper177]

tru

[@diezelleprozo6047]

canada goose sounds harmoniously chaotic, but good sounding

[@jamescanada3712]

This reminds me of The Secret of Mana from SNES.❤

[@hesangasong]

dope concept!

[@daxterthefox]

9:30 Die hard sounds like it can used as part of an OST of a spooky mystery game

[@Nug_Lord]

This is so cool! If you revisit this, I think another fun way to lay out the grid would be a 12x12 with each row going up the circle of fifths and starting from the next note as you go up the column

[@muggyate]

omg loafer sounds so good!

[@lego_by_leo]

Nice! It sounded better then I thought.

[@Tom-lz9pu]

I would so love to have the ability to play with this myself, or even having the source being able to play with different parameters. This would be so cool

[@bruoche]

I wonder also how it would sound by also just keeping pressed notes that are pressed two generations in a row as an extra thinning strategy, that way we also could maybe get like long lasting chords or something and avoid every single note being always pressed at the same interval to vary the rythm

[@AJ-ws5vy]

It would be fun to have a program that takes a set of chords and tries to turn it into a conway pattern

[@gwynkoski980]

Someone needs to make this into a synth module, would make for a really interesting sequencer

[@goge-]

This recalls the Tarkus for me!

[@genericobjectshow3440]

3:08 - wake up, new INTERLOPER soundtrack just dropped

[@zcu8404]

great video!

[@TikyLikey]

I really like listening to Conway West :D

[@gbjsyzftbcacjyfubjygkgcjae3182]

5:43 i feel like i just entered a woods area that's rumoured to be haunted by local npcs

[@archandset]

That recurring pattern is too catchy…

[@awesomedixdam106]

I like heavy weight spaceship! 5:30

[@masonsickler2878]

Loafer sounds really cool

[@yveltheyveltal5166]

I think Die Hard is underappreciated, I loved that.

[@aprilmcd]

Native Instruments' Reaktor actually has a drum machine that uses very similar mechanics to the game of life (might be the same but I'm not sure) called Newscool, it's pretty neat

[@discollife]

Id love to see someone use this to recreate pipular songs! Love the idea and the video ❤

[@DawnNDew124]

The loafer was beautiful :)

[@xitheris1758]

When not thinned, it reminds me of music from Mr. Rogers Neighborhood.

[@FancyPotatOS]

These would turn out really good with diminished chords as well, and maybe some way to stop neighbouring notes from playing, perhaps by keeping the neighbour note that is more popular. Thanks for sharing!

[@simp_lex]

What a minimalistic sound :)

[@alextemplemusic]

These sound especially good at 2x speed!

[@TheOne_6]

Nice!

[@rodrigoappendino]

The pinwheel is my new favourite object.

[@brennanlawson6108]

So cool

[@ygnoen6685]

for the loafer, A major, highest newborn on string, the beginning gave crazy "amazing digital circus" vibes

[@ricardopaula4082]

this could be a piano piece, like the way each one sounds and blends into each other like movements, could be a piece about life itself

[@Patternssquared]

As someone with the last name of conway, I can confirm this is awesome

[@user-wn1dd8ls2u]

10:44 basically Hanon

[@Hooeylewissukz]

As with most computer generated music tools, this works well to inspire and he a creative starting point. But none of this sounds like music, that's where a human has to come in.

[@paper177]

die hard sounds crazy tho

[@xXTomokoKurokiXx]

Most of this is not necessarily to make compositions, but to prove a point - that music in its purist form is a series of patterns, and we can use things like Conway's Game of Life to find unique patterns and apply them to our own understanding of music.

[@bochak9657]

9:12 my absolute favourite

[@cowabunga2246]

This is very interesting

[@indigo9738]

I think it would be more harmonious to have the pitch increase towards the centre, and decrease towards the boundaries, so that an object crossing the boundary doesn’t jump pitch, but instead just changes motion

[@dhedarkhcustard]

I'd be curious to see multiple grids iterating at the same time for different instruments including a drum pad. Maybe even have them update at different rates like 1 of them every 2 updates or 4 updates. What about a drum loop where it updates once every 16 beats and have the drum instruments on the Y axis and time on the X axis? So many interesting ideas.

[@dochatter3638]

...The resulting tunes make me think of Yume 2kki, for some reason. Hell, add some variations with different instruments, and they could probably be submitted as tracks to be used in game. Which is fitting, the game has a room where you can literally play Conway's Game of Life in it.

[@FourReddo]

8:53 i like this, give me some disney channel vibe

[@randomchannel-kh7oc]

you can make a really cool explosion by just squares in this

[@flingyourself]

Amazing video!!! It's incredibly interesting to hear the cool repetitions and patterns in each of the simulations. I hope there's some way we can make them ourselves eventually!

[@jonathanheffron943]

This would be fire on a modular synthesis board

[@colincobb2742]

It would be great to set it so the number of notes being played influences the interval to the next note, so that you get rhythm generated by the patterns. ie. 1-3 live notes play as 1/8 notes, 3-5 live notes play as 1/4 notes, 5+ live notes play as half notes.

[@moresnqp]

would kill for this as a vst...

[@Slicethemic]

woah am I early? the loaf one sounds amazing

[@gustavocortico1681]

It would be cool if the music space and the grid space had similar topology, that is, if the music went up and down in a wave like manner to wrap around itself.