Patterns from the Game of LifePart I: Eighth Notesfor Toy Piano[8:15]In continued fascination with J. H. Conway's cellular automaton, I have collected several hundred patterns - starting configurations - from the Game of Life website and set about to realize some as music, though with minimal change to their mapped specs.
Of three volumes resulting, this first "for toy piano" has evolved from those images with vertical dimensions of from 1 to 25 units, translating to keyboard ranges of from 1 pitch to 2 octaves. Its movements are named for their semitone ranges in order.
Regarding clusters: As default chord content was often unmanageable for both scoring and performance, I have trimmed accordingly and imposed two notational constraints: each chord has a single stem; its intervals are as a rule spelled diatonically, with accidental-types consequently mixed.
The Game of Life dot graphs underlying these pieces (up to eight for each) are listed - by pattern name, discoverer, date - at score's end. For full information on any, access ConwayLife.com and click on its name. For comments regarding my treatment, see the "NOTES" in two earlier compositions, ThinRake and No! at the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP).
I imagine this work being played, not in its entirety, but in variously selected handfuls of from three to seven movements at most. Players inspired to take "toy piano" literally will need to access a 30-key model, the shortest offering two full octaves centered on 'D'.