Knight's Tour Music
There are all sorts of correlations to music from Knight's Tours. In fact, if you think about it, the chessboard is a grid that when written in algebraic notation, directly resembles musical notes. a1 to a8 would be the first column on the chessboard counting from bottom left to upper left of the board. The basic notes in music are a, b, c, d, e, f, g. The last column on the right is h, which in German music, h represents sharps. By making a 12x12 square board for the Knight's moves, sharps and or flats can be added similar to the notes on a piano.
Therefore, you can actually use a Knight's Tour move to play interesting tunes. For instance, I could have multiple Knights on the chessboard where every square equates to the actual notes, then have multiple tours running at the same time to make chordal type music. a1 would be the lowest octave for note "a," a2 would be the next octave higher for note "a," a3 …, etc.
In western music, we normally have 12 tones for one octave which consists of 12 half steps. For instance, if we take a simple major scale of c: we would have c - d - e - f - g - a - b - c. Notice that the steps between each note are c - (1) - d - (1) - e - (1/2) - f - (1) - g - (1) - a - (1) - b - (1/2) - c, a total of 12 half steps, or 12 tones. For a minor scale, we would have a - (1) - b - (1/2) - c - (1) - d - (1) - e - (1/2) - f - (1) - g - (1) - a.
If you move a single Knight across the board from a5 to c4 to e3, you have played a simple arpeggio for A-minor. An arpeggio is like plucking the individual strings of a chord on a guitar, or playing the notes one at a time on the piano. In fact, chords are built from every third note of the scale. A basic A-minor chord would consist of the following three notes played at the same time: A - C - E.
By adding multiple Knights, say three Knights, they can be spaced on a musical chessboard to play chords. Thus, put one Knight on any "a" square, the second Knight on any "c" square, and the third Knight on any "e" square. If they all start their tours from those first squares, the first chord played will be A-minor. Adding more Knights extends the range of the chords into 7ths, 9ths, 11ths, or 13ths.
Therefore, you can actually use a Knight's Tour move to play interesting tunes. For instance, I could have multiple Knights on the chessboard where every square equates to the actual notes, then have multiple tours running at the same time to make chordal type music. a1 would be the lowest octave for note "a," a2 would be the next octave higher for note "a," a3 …, etc.
In western music, we normally have 12 tones for one octave which consists of 12 half steps. For instance, if we take a simple major scale of c: we would have c - d - e - f - g - a - b - c. Notice that the steps between each note are c - (1) - d - (1) - e - (1/2) - f - (1) - g - (1) - a - (1) - b - (1/2) - c, a total of 12 half steps, or 12 tones. For a minor scale, we would have a - (1) - b - (1/2) - c - (1) - d - (1) - e - (1/2) - f - (1) - g - (1) - a.
If you move a single Knight across the board from a5 to c4 to e3, you have played a simple arpeggio for A-minor. An arpeggio is like plucking the individual strings of a chord on a guitar, or playing the notes one at a time on the piano. In fact, chords are built from every third note of the scale. A basic A-minor chord would consist of the following three notes played at the same time: A - C - E.
By adding multiple Knights, say three Knights, they can be spaced on a musical chessboard to play chords. Thus, put one Knight on any "a" square, the second Knight on any "c" square, and the third Knight on any "e" square. If they all start their tours from those first squares, the first chord played will be A-minor. Adding more Knights extends the range of the chords into 7ths, 9ths, 11ths, or 13ths.