Composing with the Vedic numeric table

by Manuel Rocha Iturbide

In 1989, the Mexican artist Juan Luis Daz asked me if I could compose
music with a numeric grid that he had been using for almost fifteen
years to make his sculptures. I was immediately interested in this
project because the relationships between numbers have always
fascinated me. It is well known that many composers have used
numbers to structure their music and that there has been always an
interest in their beauty. The ancient Greeks attributed to the
association of music and numbers a predominant place in the
philosophy of the cosmos and it was perhaps Pythagoras one of the
first mathematicians to study the relationship between sounds and
numbers. From there on there have been different philosophers,
scientists and musicians that have worked on this subject with
different points of emphasis. Some researchers have studied the
physical relationships between sound and numbers, for example, the
theory of the generation of the overtones, which the Pythagorean
School developed. On the other hand, composers have used numbers
in a free and creative way to generate musical compositions.
Before presenting this numeric grid and explaining my research
towards being able to compose with it, I will describe some ways that
have been used in the past to do music with numbers and the reasons
for which so many composers have been interested in the
relationships between numbers and why have they used them to
make their music.
May be one of the principal concerns thorough history about numbers
is that they can make beauty out of chaos, and bring order into our
minds. The school of researchers that followed Pythagoras theories
taught the mathematics of music not only as a science but also as
part of a philosophical moral code.
For Leonard B. Meyer music stands somewhere in between the two
extremes of chance and total order. This happens in general with
other artistic disciplines, the creator needs to structure his work in a
coherent way, but he is also free to brake the rules and to bring the
unexpected. Nonetheless, in this century we have had composers that
explored the extremes as a way to brake up with tradition, and to
liberate them selves from their own cultural chains. The most curious
thing is that composers that went into complete chance disagreed
conceptually from the ones that went into total

serialism and viceversa. I think that their music as well as their

attitude towards creativity was very similar. What both were doing
was to explore new musical dimensions that could not be found in the
past. They really broke up completely with tradition using systems
either too rational or irrational where there is little room for personal
taste and emotion. The composers that went into the total ordered
space chose many times numeric systems or structures to determine
their music, but they used them in different ways and with different
degrees of liberty. It is at the beginning of the XXth century that some
composers got interested in numbers and used them freely as a tool
to generate musical motives and to vary them.
One of the simplest ways to expand a musical theme and that was
used very much in post-tonal music is permutation. This is the
variation of the order of a series implying usually rational and not
haphazard variation. Alvan Berg devised some of the first twelve-note
permutations for his opera "Lulu". The following is an example of
gradual permutation of a twelve note series.

(a) 1 3 5 7 9 11 2 4 6 8 10 12
(b) 1 5 9 2 6 10 3 7 11 4 8 12
(c) 1 9 6 3 11 8 5 2 10 7 4 12
(d) 1 6 11 5 10 4 9 3 8 2 7 12
(e) 1 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 12 12
(f) 1 10 8 6 4 2 11 9 7 5 3 12
(g) 1 8 4 11 7 3 10 6 2 9 5 12
(h) 1 4 7 10 2 5 8 11 3 6 9 12
(i) 1 7 2 8 3 9 etc.

Other composers have worked with numeric series to generate

melodic rows or rhythm. The Italian composer Luigi Nono used the
Fibonacci series in "Il canto sospeso", and Stockhausen in "Mixtur"
and "Zyklus."
Another devise to generate series of notes or rhythmical values is the
Pascal triangle, which has been used by Iannis Xenakis. This triangle
is an infinite array and provides much information that can be used in
different ways.

11
121
1331
14641
1 5 10 10 5 1
1 6 15 20 15 6 1
1 7 21 35 35 21 7 1

The Pascal triangle

James Tenney uses the numbers of the overtone series to generate

the rhythm of a piece. C for example is the fundamental and has the
value of one, then comes the octave which is in the ratio of 2/1, then
the twelfth (the fifth above the octave) which is 3/1, then the double
octave which is 4/1 and so on. So in this case, every partial has its
specific rhythm derived from its relation with the fundamental. When
you have combinations of overtones like the double octave with the
twelfth you have a rhythm of four against three, and when you have
all the overtones going on at the same time you have a very complex
rhythmical texture.

We can find another way to use numbers in John Cages early

composition works when he structured whole pieces based on a
number of measures having a square root so that large lengths of the
piece were related to small phrases which use the same number. With
this system, the structure of the whole piece is done beforehand.
It is clear that there are many different ways to relate music with
numbers, we have seen how numbers can be traduced into rhythm,
melody and how they can even predetermine the form of a piece.
After doing some research about the numeric system in which I am
working now, I discovered that it had nothing to do with any of the
methods explained before, but I found out that it was closely related
to serial music, and more particularly to Integral Serialism. I will talk
now about the origin of serialism and then I will present my system
and compare my research with what has been done with other
systems.
It was Shoenberg perhaps the first composer to structure a
completely new musical system that had enough logic to be
established after his death and which many composers use these
days. Shoenberg moved out from the tonal system and entered the
world of atonality where there are no strong points of gravity, and
after working for a while in this new musical environment, he came up
with a coherent system to organize his music which is called serial
music. This system is any succession of the twelve tones of the
chromatic scale without repetition. This row is expanded using its
inversion, retrograde, and retrograde inversion. Numbers have to do
with this technique because the octave in the western tempered scale
is divided by twelve pitches which are a half tone apart. Thus, this
scale is completely symmetrical while the diatonic scale is not
symmetrical. Also, there is no strong hierarchy between pitches in the
serial system while there is in tonality. Being able to number the
twelve tones of the scale, it was easy to come up with different
mathematical equations that tells us very fast what is the level of
transposition of a given row, its inversion and its retrograde inversion.
Composers like Webern and Berg were interested in symmetry and
they chose symmetrical rows for their music. In the first movement of
Webern String Quartet Op. 28 he uses a row to generate his music
which is arranged in retrograde symmetrical order, those limiting the
48 usual orderings of a row to only 24 (example no 1). This interest in
symmetry was very strong even before the solidification of the serial
system, and in the beginning of atonal music many symmetrical pitch
class sets were used.

Example 1. Anton Webern series for the first movement of his string quartet Op. 28

If we number the twelve pitches of the chromatic scale from zero to

eleven beginning in C, we can see how the pitch class set
0, 3, 6, 9 (diminished chord) and any of its transpositions or
permutations makes it always symmetrical. It is also interesting to see
that there are only three transpositions of this PCS which use different
notes (1, 4, 7, 10 and 2, 5, 8, 11 being the other two). In all other
transpositions this PCS maps into itself. A similar situation happens
with PCS 0, 4, 8, (Augmented chord) PCS 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12 (whole
tone scale), PCS 0,1,3,4,6,7,9,11 (octatonic scale) and with the
chromatic scale itself. So the most symmetrical PCS which map more
times into themselves are the ones that have less variety. I bring all
this up because the system that i use is a perfect symmetrical
system, and many of these things will help to explain how it works.
In Serial music the twelve note series are often subdivided into small
PCS which are related one to each other. Serial music is just an
extension of the compositional techniques used in atonality but here
the ordering of the pitches is fundamental while in atonal music the
order is not so important as long as we use the same collections
through all the piece. What is important in serial music is to come up
with an interesting twelve-note row, and symmetry is very often a
quality chosen by the composer. In example one, Webern's series can
be subdivided in small dyads which are always minor seconds, and it
can also be divided in two hexacords which are the same collection of
notes. Adding the notes from the center to the extremes can prove
the symmetry of the row. This addition is always eleven. So the two
central notes of the row (C# and Bb) are the symmetrical axis. This
series is very economical and you can actually divide it also in three
tetrachords which are members of the same set class, so it is easy to
see how important are the choices of the composer concerning the
twelve note row.
Having talked enough for the moment about serial music, I will now
present the numeric table I use and describe its properties.
This is a numeric grid of 64 numbers which is the result of multiplying
2x1, 2x2, 2x3, 2x4, 2x5, 2x6......up to 9, then 3x1, 3x2, 3x3...... up to

nine, and so on until we multiply 9x1, 9x2, 9x3, ...... until 9x9. The
table is shown in example 2.

Example 2.

However, in this table, when we have a number higher than nine we

reduce it by adding the two digits, so the table has only single digits
as in example 3.

123456789
246813579
369369369
483726159
516273849
639639639
753186429
876543219
999999999
Example 3

As you can see, the outer numbers of the grid are always nine. This is
because number nine is the number, which includes all the other
numbers, and if you notice, the product of the addition of any line in
any direction is always nine. This table was used by the Sumerians
and later by the Vedic culture, and it has to do a lot with Pythagorean
mathematics.

Pythagoras thought that number nine was the transcendent number

and it is believed that he divided everything in cycles of nine. Number
zero is the complementary of nine, so zero, nine are the same, and as
nine repeats itself before the new cycle begins, it is excluded from
this table. So we end up with our table of sixty-four digits which
curiously is a cabalistic number and a number of great balance
(example 4). Sixty four is the number of squares in the game of chess,
and it's the number of the hexagrams of the
"I Ching".
The "Vedic Table" is in a way the representation of the
complementary, of the "Ying" and "Yang", and it is symmetrical with
itself in any direction. No wonder that it is a square, a symmetrical
geometric figure (Notice in example four that the only four nines that
appear in the table form a square).

Example 4

In the Vedic table, the horizontal rows of numbers are equal to the
vertical rows, and you can see how there are only four different rows
of numbers because the others are the retrograde of the first. You can
also see how the rows that begin with number one and number eight
are complementary (the numbers add always up to nine), as well as
two and seven, three and six, and four and five.

Example 5. complamentarity of numbers in the Vedic table.

It is clear now how the main characteristic of this table is

complementarity of numbers that added together are nine. The Artist
J.L Daz studied these relationships and he found out that putting
complementary numbers together, there were geometric figures
which were the same but projected in a mirror.

Example six. Two's and sevens.

Example seven. Threes and sixes.

When Daz asked me to do music with this grid, he was concerned

about expressing the qualities of the system in the most objective
way. He's approach was not to transgress the rules or laws of the
system, but simply to discover its relationships and to show them
through geometric designs. When he got tired of dealing with two
dimensions, he had the intelligent idea of expanding this system to
three dimensions by making a cube that has 512 numbers and is the
result of the multiplication of the numbers in different layers. He
dragged imaginary lines between the numbers in the cube and came
up with three-dimensional geometric figures. The number
relationships in this cube are very complex, and i am planning to work
with it once i do enough research with the original table.
The problem of trying to keep with Daz approach was that he was
drawing lines between the same number, and then of its
complementary number to create forms or structures which are fixed
in time. How would one deal with that in music where time is the first
element? I decided that the easiest way to interpret the grid was to
use the numeric rows which it includes, but i thought that every time i
wanted to use one of the rows, i had to use at the same time its
complementary row because this is a game of dualities. Therefore, my
method of traducing this system into music became something similar
to the procedures used in integral serialism.
Since this is a table of eight elements, i decided to use a scale of
eight notes. The logic thing would be to divide the octave in eight
different tones but i did not have the proper devices to do that, and it
would be difficult for instrumentalists to play with such a scale. I
thought that i could use instead the octatonic scale which is a
sequence of halved and whole tones (Example 8).

Example 8. Two Octatonic scales. One starts with halve tone and
the second one starts with a whole tone.

This scale does not correspond to an equal sequence of eight tones

but it is a symmetrical collection. In his book "Introduction to posttonal theory", Strauss shows an example of the four axes of symmetry
in the octatonic scale (Example 9).

Example 9. For Axes of symmetry in the octatonic scale.

This scale works very well because I am dealing with symmetrical

tetrachords.
I also decided to have eight different rhythmical values having an
eight note as my basic unit. Therefore, I assigned a value to every
number.

Now I assigned the note and rhythmic values to the rows and i did a
counterpoint of two melodic lines that are always complementary
between each other. This means that i start from the top and the
bottom of the square so i have always two juxtaposed rows: 1 and 8,
2 and 7, 3 and 6, 4 and 5 which are the original and their retrograde
version (see composition I in appendix).
There was a little difficulty interpreting the four nines in the square
since i used the number eight as a unit. I decided then to assign the
nines a rest of nine beats (my basic beat is one eight note). It is
interesting that the two melodies have vertical coincidences when
they arrive at the same time to number nine in rows 3 and 6.
I think this is a very close musical representation of the Vedic table
but being so strict, there are be very few possibilities of variety, so i
decided to search for new possibilities of interpreting the table.
Finding out recently that some composers in the fifties were deeply
involved with integral serialism, i decided to find out about their
methods so i could have more ideas. One of the compositions of this
period that is quite interesting is "Structures" for two pianos written in
1952 by Pierre Boulez. This composer was a pupil of Messiaen who
was one of the first European composers to write a piece with total
organization in 1949.
Boulez piece is based on a twelve tone row. In Structure Ia (the first of
three parts) all twelve transpositions of the series and their derived
forms (inversions, retrogrades, and inverted retrogrades) are used
once each in a specific order. From the original and inverted series,
Boulez constructed two tables which he uses to compose many
details of the music. These matrices were obtained by numbering the
original series and then transposing it eleven times, starting every
time in the next note (Example 10).

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

2 8 4 5 6 11 1 9 12 3 7 10
3 4 1 2 8 9 10 5 6 7 12 11
4 5 2 8 9 12 3 6 11 1 10 7
5 6 8 9 12 10 4 11 7 2 3 1
6 11 9 12 10 3 5 7 1 8 4 2
7 1 10 3 4 5 11 2 8 12 6 9
8 9 5 6 11 7 2 12 10 4 1 3
9 12 6 11 7 1 8 10 3 5 2 4
10 3 7 1 2 8 12 4 5 11 9 6
11 7 12 10 3 4 6 1 2 9 5 8
12 10 11 7 1 2 9 3 4 6 8 5

Example 10. Original series and 'O' matrix grid.

The matrices determine all note duration's, dynamics, and modes of

attack and they are used to govern the order in which the note series
are used , and to form an overall plan for note duration's. Boulez uses
diagonal rows of the matrices to determine the dynamics and modes
of attack. Therefore, here we have a composition based completely on
the two matrices, although the overall form structure of the piece is
really a free conception. In addition, number and pitch are not
completely integrated. The rhythmic row has as a unit a 32nd, and
the rhythmic value grows proportionally from one to twelve, but the
pitches are not equally ordered from one to twelve.
This is not the place to go into a deep analysis of "Structures", and it
is enough to say that even in total serialism it is difficult to be
completely logical. There is always a degree of liberty that the
composer assumes, and it is there where music becomes a human
artistic expression. Nonetheless, i am sill interested in finding
complete degrees of organization as Cage went in the opposite
direction and found a complete degree of chance. In both cases, the
composer looks for a way to make objective decisions and he
becomes an observer of the process that he is generating.

I am now trying to use the information of the "Vedic table" in different

ways to obtain variety but i am trying to respect the essence of its
rules. After my research is finished, i will generate different
compositions. Now i will explain the other possibilities of the table.
Besides the eight rows i worked with the first time, there are also
diagonal rows, which are complementary to each other. These are as
follow:

Notice how every row of each triangle is symmetrical and how they
are complementary with each other (the numbers always add up to
nine). From these two triangles, it is possible to make a second
musical counterpoint.
I thought that i could expand this grid in order to have diversity but
always keeping complementary rows. Influenced by serial theory I
started to investigate about the tetrachords of the octatonic scale.
The numeric square is made out of eight tone rows with no pitch
repetitions except for rows number three and six where the pitches
three and six are repeated. The other rows can be divided in
tetrachords and their complementary tetrachords. We can find only
three different tetrachords in the table: 1 2 3 4, 2 4 6 8, and
4 8 3 7. Their complementary tetrachords are 5 6 7 8, 1 3 5 7 and 2 6
1 5 but they are only transpositions of the first.
There are a limited set of serial rows in the octatonic scale which
regard the complementary principle. This is because a tetrachord
cannot have two numbers, which add up to nine, if that happens then
the complementary tetrachord would have the repetition of two
numbers of the first tetrachord.
For example, if we make up the tetrachord 1 2 5 7 which does not
exist in the Vedic table, its complementary tetrachord would be 2 4 7
8 and thus we have 2 and 7 repeated. If we have 1 3 6 2 we have the

complementary tetrachord 7 3 6 8 and we have three and six

repeated. I then discovered that there are only eight different possible
tetrachords in the octatonic scale that goes along with their
complementary tetrachords. In the numeric grid, we have only three
of the eight possible tetrachords.
Here are the eight possible tetrachords and their complementary
tetrachords:

Example 11. The eight possible tetrachords and

their complementary tetrachords.

With three of the new rows, it is possible to make a new table:

12645378
24381657
63963963
48672315
51327684
36936936
75618342
87354621

Example 12. New Vedic table.

If you notice, you can generate this new table by just switching
around the threes and the sixes. All the geometric figures remain the
same but the tetrachords are new (except for the tetrachords of rows,
three and six which are the same as in the original table).
We still have two tetrachords left. Lets use
1 7 3 4 : 5 6 2 8 to construct another table:

17345628
74318652
33936966
41372685
58627314
66963933
25681347
82654371

Example 13. Hybrid table 1.

Here i just switched the twos with the sevenths but now all the
geometric figures have changed except the one with fours and fives. I
would call this table a Hybrid table because it only has one tetrachord
and it is complementary in different orders (with the exception of the
rows at levels two and seven).
We have one more table that can be generated by the tetrachords 1 7
6 4 : 5 3 2 8.

17645328

74618352
66963933
41672385
58327614
33936966
25381647
82354671

Example 14. Hybrid table 2.

Notice how the Hybrid table two is equal to number one but with the
threes and sixes switched. They also have the same geometric figures
but different tetrachords.
I have expanded the original Vedic Table to four tables, thus having
more information for compositional purposes.
It is also possible to use permutation with the different tables and in
this way to change the order of the pitches and enrich melodic
content. We can permute a whole row or only the first tetrachord
( the last step changes in automatic way the order of the
complementary tetrachord ). For example, we have the row:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8, if we permute the row in this way:
2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1, we brake with the balance of the row
because the numbers doesn't add up to nine (from the center to the
outer part). We would have to use 2 3 4 5 and find the
complementary tetrachord 4 5 6 7. The problem is that in this case,
we have the repetition of numbers four and five and this brakes with
the serial principal of no repetition. On the other hand we could get
reed off a 4 and 5 and keep only six pitches:
2 3 4 : 5 6 7. Notice how we have now a hexachord molded
by two symmetrical trichords. The only other possible hexachord in
this row is 1 2 3 : 6 7 8 and of course, the trichords can be

switched in order to have variation: 5 6 7 : 2 3 4

and 6 7 8 : 1 2 3 . This procedure can also be applied to the
tetrachords of the table, so the melodic sequence generated by
row number two, 2 4 6 8 1 3 5 7
could also be 1 3 5 7 2 4 6 8.
To have all the rows switched like this is just a matter of cutting in
halve the numeric grid and changing the two blocks of place (example
13).

Example 13. Halves of Vedic table switched.

The new variation of the Vedic table shown in example 13 is not in the
right order because there is no symmetry in the diagonals. The proper
order of the rows is the following:

Example 14. Switched halves of Vedic table with ordered rows.

To compose with this system, should I regard the sequence of the

rows in the squares or should I use them in pairs (1 and 8,
2 and 7, 3 and 6, 4 and 5) and not respect the order?. I think that one
can deal with different degrees of freedom and express in different
ways the guideline of the system, but it is important at this stage to
reveal the infrastructure of this numeric greed so we understand it
better and get more out of it. Once we know the rules, we can brake
them.
There are still more possibilities of permutation. If we take a
tetrachord from the original table levels one, two or four, we can
generate 24 permutations for every one because four numbers can be
ordered in twenty-two different ways. As I mentioned before, there are
only three different tetrachords in the Vedic table, and one more
which is the combination of number 3, 6 and 9 (nine is not considered
as a pitch).
Lets take for instance the collection 1 2 3 4 from level one. I
discovered that it was enough to find twelve different permutations of
this tetrachord because the other twelve are the retrograde of the
first. These permutations are:

Example 15. Twelve permutations of tetrachord 1 2 3 4 and their retrogrades.

Every one of these twelve permutations generates a new numeric

square , which also contains permutations of levels two, three and
four. Therefore, in these twelve squares we have all possible
permutations of the tetrachords of the Vedic table and more
information to engender new musical material. This twelve squares
can also be splitted in halve to make other twelve squares as in
example 14.
Now i would like to talk more about interpreting this table musically.
As i said before, i want to use a microtonal scale to use this scale, but
somehow, i think that i can still do some research on the octatonic
scale. Besides using this scale i thought about dividing the piano pitch
register in eight parts, using eight different timbers, eight different
modes of attack, and eight different dynamics.
I could also have eight different densities, or rhythmical scales for the
notes although in this case it may be better to have only four
densities because the other four would be the retrograde of the first.
There is no need to assign the pitches of the octatonic scale to the
numbers in abstract way as i did it( example I in Appendix). We can
choose whatever eight note row and then number the notes.
However, it would be nice to choose rows, which are complementary
in most ways, as composers do using the serial technique of
combinatoriality. This is a way of choosing twelve tone aggregates in
which their hexacords hold a mutual relationship. One hexachord can
have the following characteristics:
1.- It can map onto its complement under transposition.
2.- It can map onto its complement under inversion.
3.- It can map onto itself under transposition.
4.- It can map onto itself under inversion.

Some of the hexacords in a row have only one of these characteristics

and some of them have all of them. Using rows, which are all
combinatorial help, us to modulate between different rows in a
smooth way. This principle can be applied to the octatonic scale and
there is yet need to investigate the different possibilities of
combinatoriality in this system.
Another thing to consider is that there are only three octatonic scales
and that they share common notes. It is then possible to find a way to
modulate from one scale to another in order to expand the use of
absolute pitches.

Example 16. The three octatonic scales and their common notes.

See in example 16 how one scale has always four common notes with
the other two. Any two scales we play together will then contain the
twelve notes of the chromatic scale. One more important thing to
notice is that in every scale we can begin with a halve tone or a whole
tone. It really does not matter because we keep the symmetry of the
scale but the melodic material will change in color. Using the scale
that begins with a whole step and assigning the numbers of the table
to it, i had a different mode (like major and minor have the same
intervalic content but are inverted and sound different). It is important
to consider this as a composer.
There is still much to be said about the possibilities to compose with
the Vedic Table and the eight tone scale but what I've done up to this
moment is enough to start being creative and to explore new
possibilities. I now think that to get lost in numbers and devices that
seem not to be musical is very important because it is a way of
learning how to structure something and how to make your music
coherent. All composers have been in a need to do this because
dealing with time is a very complex thing. On the other hand there
still remains the question of whether we are being too intellectual
when we make music in this way and if it is possible to decipher the
organization of this music by the listener. I think that it is possible to

deal with structural complexity and at the same time to be very

transparent or clear. It is true that this music is difficult to understand
because we don't have the habit of listening to it but i also think that
it is exciting to listen to music that is constructed in ways that we
never thought of.