Fibonacci Numbers in Popular Culture - Music

Music

  • hip hop duo Black Star's song "Astronomy (8th Light)" from the 1998 album Mos Def & Talib Kweli are Black Star, features the Fibonacci sequence in the chorus:

Now everybody hop on the one, the sounds of the two
It's the third eye vision, five side dimension
The 8th Light, is gonna shine bright tonight

  • Tool's song "Lateralus" from the album of the same name features the Fibonacci sequence symbolically in the verses of the song. The syllables in the first verse count 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 5, 3, 13, 8, 5, 3. The missing section (2, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8) is later filled in during the second verse. The time signatures of the chorus change from 9/8 to 8/8 to 7/8; as drummer Danny Carey says, "It was originally titled 9-8-7. For the time signatures. Then it turned out that 987 was the 16th number of the Fibonacci sequence. So that was cool."
  • Ernő Lendvaï analyzes Béla Bartók's works as being based on two opposing systems, that of the golden ratio and the acoustic scale. In the third movement of Bartok's Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta, the opening xylophone passage uses Fibonacci rhythm as such: 1:1:2:3:5:8:5:3:2:1:1.
  • The Fibonacci numbers are also apparent in the organisation of the sections in the music of Debussy's Image, Reflections in Water, in which the sequence of keys is marked out by the intervals 34, 21, 13 and 8.
  • Polish composer Krzysztof Meyer structured the values in his Trio for clarinet, cello and piano according to the Fibonacci sequence.
  • Fibonacci's name was adopted by a Los Angeles-based art rock group The Fibonaccis, that recorded from 1981 to 1987.
  • American musician BT also recorded a song titled "Fibonacci Sequence". The narrator in the song goes through all the numbers of the sequence from 1 to 21 (0 is not mentioned). The track appeared on a limited edition version of his 1999 album Movement in Still Life, and is also featured on the second disc of the Global Underground 013: Ibiza compilation mixed by Sasha.
  • Voiceover and recording artist Ken Nordine described Fibonacci numbers in a word jazz piece called "Fibonacci Numbers" on his album A Transparent Mask.
  • American musician Doctor Steel has a song titled "Fibonacci Sequence" on his album People of Earth.

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