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 (https://processing.org). The audio was generated using Java's built-in MIDI library (javax.sound.midi). Life Lexicon: https://conwaylife.com/ref/lexicon/le... ________ Interested in learning more about algorithms, math, and how to program? Here are some useful and/or classic textbooks that I recommend (these are affiliate links, if you buy one, I get a small commission): ▶ “Algorithms” (4th Edition) by Robert Sedgewick & Kevin Wayne: https://amzn.to/3uo25xR ▶ “Effective Java” (3rd Edition) by Joshua Bloch: https://amzn.to/3HOnYJL ▶ “Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software” by Erich Gamma, Richard Helm, Ralph Johnson, & John Vlissides: https://amzn.to/49fpr7R ▶ “Discrete Algorithmic Mathematics” by Stephen B. Maurer & Anthony Ralston: https://amzn.to/4bmsOvG #music #math #cellularautomata #gameoflife #conway #computermusic #algorithmicmusic #algorithmiccomposition #patterns #algorithm #computerscience