Projects
Here are a few things that I've worked on in my (increasingly dwindling) spare time. Legalese: Everything published here on or after February 16, 2017 is licensed under CC-BY-NC-SA, which means that you can use, adapt, and distribute any of these works for non-commercial purposes only under the following conditions: you credit me and release the resulting works under the same license. Everything published here before February 16, 2017 (except the translations) is licensed under CC-BY-SA, which means that you can use, adapt, and distribute any of these works (for commercial or non-commercial purposes) provided you credit me and release the resulting works under the same license. The source material for the translations is all in the public domain, and I am releasing all of my translations here under the CC0 license. This is functionally equivalent to releasing them into the public domain, meaning that there are no restrictions on how you can use these documents.
Homeopathy meets Serendipity
In Defense of Pluto
Seven Days
I got really into electronica for a while, and these seven songs were part of an album that I put together for my wife one Christmas.
Monday (Alarm)
Tuesday (Groove)
Wednesday (No Guitars)
Thursday (Dance Party)
Friday (Alone)
Saturday (Pinball)
Sunday (Church)
Preludes
When I was in high school, I wanted to be like Bach/Chopin/Rachmaninoff. So I decided to write 24 preludes--one in each key. But, being a teenager, I only managed to get through about half of them before I got distracted. Here are the ones that I've recorded and/or digitized the sheet music for so far. I'm in the process of recording the rest of them. There are also a few fragments that I'm busy completing. In the long run, I want to get around to finishing out the cycle.
Prelude C min
mp3
Sheet Music
Prelude D min
Sheet Music
Prelude Eb maj
mp3
Sheet Music
Prelude E maj
Sheet Music
Prelude E min
Sheet Music
Prelude F maj
Sheet Music
Prelude F min
mp3
Sheet Music
Prelude F# min
Sheet Music
Prelude G maj (for Rachel)
mp3
Sheet Music
Prelude G min
Sheet Music
Prelude A min
Sheet Music
Prelude Bb maj
Sheet Music
Prelude B maj
Sheet Music
Music for my daughter
"Berceuse" from Stravinsky's Firebird
Video (a few baubles, crappy audio quality)
Sheet Music
Piano reduction. Stravinsky himself did a version of this, and I'm pretty sure he's a better musician than me. Nonetheless, enjoy.
Lullaby for right hand alone
Sheet Music
Best played while holding an infant with the left hand.
Album Leaf
Sheet Music
Pianists: learn your alto clef. Also, apparently I'm into tone clusters and quartal harmony right now.
Music experiments
For a while, I was interested in aleatoric music and art (art with a high reliance on chance). A long time ago, I wrote a couple of short scripts to generate random .wav and .bmp files, and as expected, they were all noise. I also wrote a terrible script that spat out two lines of text: one with melodic information and one with rhythmic information. I then hand-transcribed these to manuscript paper to build up a short string quartet movement. The sheet music and a canned .ogg file are given here:
Sheet Music
.ogg file
I wrote a Fortran program that slaps a .wav file header on any file, thereby converting the file to something that can be played by an audio player. Most files end up being no better than noise, but some kinds have a regular enough structure to produce ordered tones. Below, I've given the code as well as two examples: one is a wavefunction from a quantum chemistry calculation, and the other is the .doc file of my Ph.D. thesis. The input file for the program is limited to 2GB (as are all .wav files). Warning: many of the files generated are LOUD.
Source code
Wavefunction
Thesis
Research that I do for my blog frequently takes me to old papers, and since most of the scientific literature before World War II was not in English, I often find myself having to translate a lot of the papers that I find. I'll post them as I get through them. I'm releasing them all under CC0 (the original papers are all public domain at this point), but I must warn you before you use any of them that I'm not a professional translator, and that I'm not even very good at English, my native language. A note about usage: I've tried to preserve italicized statements and archaic language. The "Notes" section at the end of each paper contains the original footnotes from the papers themselves. The "Translator's Notes" section provides my commentary.
Synthesis of dimethylheptenol
Originally published as Barbier, P. "Synthèse du diméthylhepténol." Compt. Rend. (1899) 128, 110.
On some novel organometallic compounds of magnesium and their application to synthesis of alcohols and hydrocarbons
Originally published as Grignard, V. "Sur quelques nouvelles combinaisons organomètalliques du magnèsium et leur application à des synthèses d’alcools et d’hydrocarbures." Compt. Rend. (1900) 130, 1322.
On a novel class of organic radicals
Originally published as Wurtz, A. "Sur une nouvelle classe de radicaux organiques." Annales de chimie et de physique, (1855) 44, 275. I'm still working on this one.
Essays
Homeopathy meets Serendipity
In Defense of Pluto
Music
Seven Days
I got really into electronica for a while, and these seven songs were part of an album that I put together for my wife one Christmas.
Monday (Alarm)
Tuesday (Groove)
Wednesday (No Guitars)
Thursday (Dance Party)
Friday (Alone)
Saturday (Pinball)
Sunday (Church)
Preludes
When I was in high school, I wanted to be like Bach/Chopin/Rachmaninoff. So I decided to write 24 preludes--one in each key. But, being a teenager, I only managed to get through about half of them before I got distracted. Here are the ones that I've recorded and/or digitized the sheet music for so far. I'm in the process of recording the rest of them. There are also a few fragments that I'm busy completing. In the long run, I want to get around to finishing out the cycle.
Prelude C min
mp3
Sheet Music
Prelude D min
Sheet Music
Prelude Eb maj
mp3
Sheet Music
Prelude E maj
Sheet Music
Prelude E min
Sheet Music
Prelude F maj
Sheet Music
Prelude F min
mp3
Sheet Music
Prelude F# min
Sheet Music
Prelude G maj (for Rachel)
mp3
Sheet Music
Prelude G min
Sheet Music
Prelude A min
Sheet Music
Prelude Bb maj
Sheet Music
Prelude B maj
Sheet Music
Music for my daughter
"Berceuse" from Stravinsky's Firebird
Video (a few baubles, crappy audio quality)
Sheet Music
Piano reduction. Stravinsky himself did a version of this, and I'm pretty sure he's a better musician than me. Nonetheless, enjoy.
Lullaby for right hand alone
Sheet Music
Best played while holding an infant with the left hand.
Album Leaf
Sheet Music
Pianists: learn your alto clef. Also, apparently I'm into tone clusters and quartal harmony right now.
Music experiments
For a while, I was interested in aleatoric music and art (art with a high reliance on chance). A long time ago, I wrote a couple of short scripts to generate random .wav and .bmp files, and as expected, they were all noise. I also wrote a terrible script that spat out two lines of text: one with melodic information and one with rhythmic information. I then hand-transcribed these to manuscript paper to build up a short string quartet movement. The sheet music and a canned .ogg file are given here:
Sheet Music
.ogg file
I wrote a Fortran program that slaps a .wav file header on any file, thereby converting the file to something that can be played by an audio player. Most files end up being no better than noise, but some kinds have a regular enough structure to produce ordered tones. Below, I've given the code as well as two examples: one is a wavefunction from a quantum chemistry calculation, and the other is the .doc file of my Ph.D. thesis. The input file for the program is limited to 2GB (as are all .wav files). Warning: many of the files generated are LOUD.
Source code
Wavefunction
Thesis
Translations
Research that I do for my blog frequently takes me to old papers, and since most of the scientific literature before World War II was not in English, I often find myself having to translate a lot of the papers that I find. I'll post them as I get through them. I'm releasing them all under CC0 (the original papers are all public domain at this point), but I must warn you before you use any of them that I'm not a professional translator, and that I'm not even very good at English, my native language. A note about usage: I've tried to preserve italicized statements and archaic language. The "Notes" section at the end of each paper contains the original footnotes from the papers themselves. The "Translator's Notes" section provides my commentary.
Synthesis of dimethylheptenol
Originally published as Barbier, P. "Synthèse du diméthylhepténol." Compt. Rend. (1899) 128, 110.
On some novel organometallic compounds of magnesium and their application to synthesis of alcohols and hydrocarbons
Originally published as Grignard, V. "Sur quelques nouvelles combinaisons organomètalliques du magnèsium et leur application à des synthèses d’alcools et d’hydrocarbures." Compt. Rend. (1900) 130, 1322.
On a novel class of organic radicals
Originally published as Wurtz, A. "Sur une nouvelle classe de radicaux organiques." Annales de chimie et de physique, (1855) 44, 275. I'm still working on this one.
