Attuned to the Arts and Sciences

Gattaca by Joe Kane

 

Joe Kane, an undergraduate composition student, wrote "Gattaca" based on a gene sequence that is about 250 amino acids in length. He paired the letters up and assigned each group one of 12 musical notes. He used the notes as pitches for the melody and then wrote chords that accentuated the implied harmonies.

Joe explained that he also "took the base pairs themselves (700 or so), matched them to their respective musical notes (A, C, G, and I replaced Thymine with E) and had them run, in the exact sequence, under the whole tune. You can hear it in the drum break after the first real 'chorus.' "

He wrote the tune for an interdisciplinary lounge that will be installed at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater. The lounge will include a huge agar plate of bacterial cultures that are arranged to look like Michaelangelo's "Creation of Adam." There will be numerous double-stranded helix mobiles, and projecting on one of the walls will be gel electrophoresis slides that are supposed to simulate a graphic EQ of Joe's tune.

"I like the resulting music a lot. 'It has a good beat, and you can dance to it' as they always said on American Bandstand. But in fact, I think it is surprisingly appealing music for springing from such an unusual concept," says Jim Greeson, Kane's composition professor.