Playing the Weather #3

A strategy for deriving musical tones

Find the world temperatures chart in a daily newspaper.

Musical notes are derived from the name of the cities in the list.

The note is based on the first musical note letter appearing in the name of hat city. Algiers=A, Cairo=C, Frankfurt=F, Munich=C, Mombassa=B, Rio de J*=D

Any key signature can be applied with its appropriate flats or sharps.

To begin start the city whose position is equal to that days date. Today is the 4th so the process begins with Ams'dam (based on The Guardian's list today). The note A is written down.

Read across to the temperature recorded in °C.

Advance through the list based on the figure in the °C column noting the musical note of the city arrived at.

Continue this process to derive as many notes as you require for a performance.

Treat the list as circular. Passing from the final city (Zurich) and back to the start (Ajaccio) is equal to one step.

Minus figures indicate to work backwards through the list.

For cities registering 0°C refer to the Fahrenheit figure to continue the process.

If the city does not have a musical note, no note is written down. Toronto and Jo'burg are examples of this. Their temperatures are still used to continue the process.

For example: in Paris (A) on 3/1/09 the temperature was 1°C. Advancing 1 step brings us to Perth (E) 35°C. Advancing 35 steps yields Belgrade (B) -3°C Back three to Barcelona (B) 10°C

Woking in C major with no flats or sharps, we now have the notes A, C and B to be played.

Loops may occur. This is acceptable.

The same tone may appear numerous times. Accept the process.

*adhere to any abbreviations used by the newspaper rather than full city names.

Jan 08, revised Jan 09