The Mozart Dice Game

- By Jonathan S. Simon
This Applet requires the JSyn Plugin from SoftSynth.com.

Process

The concept for this game, devised by Mozart centuries ago, involves rolling a group of dice to compose a score. The process consists of a 177 measure score and score reference matrix for matching the dice roll values to actual measures. For each of the sixteen measures, there are eleven possible measure choices (one for each possible roll value of two dice 2-12 inclusive). One pair of dice is rolled for each of the sixteen measures. The roll value/measure number is used as a coordinate in the score reference matrix identifying the measure to play. After sixteen dice rolls, the score is complete and ready to be played.

The Interface

At the bottom of the screen there are two matrices The x-axis indexes correspond to measure numbers of the score being generated while the y-axis indexes correspond to dice roll values. Assume that a 7 is rolled for the first measure. The number in the box at (1,7) is 104 indicating that measure 1 of the score being composed is measure 104 from Mozart’s score. When the roll button is pressed, each of the sixteen pairs of dice are rolled and the values are displayed to the lower right hand side of the interface. Following the roll, each matrix highlights the measures that it used to construct the playing score. The red background indicates the currently playing measure.

Instructions

    1. Wait for the score to be loaded. When you see the Applet appear below, then proceed.
    2. Roll the dice by pressing the "Roll Dice" button.
    3. Press "Play" button to hear the piece.
    4. Press "Stop" and roll again to hear a different version.

Support

This project was funded by a collaboration grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The grant for a collaboration between computer science and music was written and submitted by Rhys Price Jones of Oberlin Computer Science and Gary Nelson of TIMARA. The software is currently being used as an example of an historic algorithmic composition for their class. This will be one of the featured software pieces at a meeting of the Special Interest Group Computer Science Education (SIGCSE) division of the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) which I will be attending jointly with Rhys Price Jones of the Oberlin Computer Science Department. Special thanks to Phil Burk, author of the JSyn synthesis engine which is used to power the audio part of the software. For more information browse to www.softsynth.com.