1. Rapoport Problem of the Day
2. Pi-Related Videos
3. Pi Music for Mocha
4. More on Pi Day Parties
5. Conclusion
Rapoport Problem of the Day
Today on her Daily Epsilon of Math 2020, Rebecca Rapoport writes:
i 8 (capital-Sigma) (lowercase-pi)
Since the "Sigma" also denotes the sum, today's phrase becomes "I ate some pie." That's right, today's question isn't a math problem whose answer is 14, today's date. At the start of the year, Rapoport tells us that on three special dates, she give a joke instead of a math problem. Of course, the first of those three days is today, Pi Day.
This is the fifth ceremonial anniversary of the start of this blog. Five years ago, Pi Day 2015, just like today, also fell on a Saturday.
But this is the first of at least three spring break posts, due to the coronavirus. It marks the first time that Pi Day occurred anywhere spring break since 2008. That year, Easter fell on its earliest date this century, March 23rd. Districts such as LAUSD always take Holy Week off, and so the last day before spring break in that district was the fourteenth.
Last year, I was fortunate to sub in an eighth grade Algebra I class on Pi Day. Yesterday, meanwhile, was my last of three days in a special ed high school English class. Actually before he left, the regular teacher explained why he was out this week -- today is his son's wedding! That's right -- his son chose to get married on Pi Day. The wedding takes place up north, in Silicon Valley, where the groom works in the tech industry. As geeks, the couple decided to have a Pi Day wedding. Oh, and instead of wedding cake, the main course is pie.
I still remember the Carters -- Shaun and Sarah -- blogging about their March 2016 wedding. Since they are both math teachers, Pi Day would have been a natural choice that month. But as that was a Monday, they had their wedding two days earlier. (Sarah Carter doesn't blog as much any more, not since the birth of the couple's first child.)
Of course, the coronavirus is like a dark cloud hovering over Pi Day this year. Yes, students have a longer spring break and teachers get paid time off, but outside of schools, everyone is on edge because of the disease.
Still, let's try to have some Pi Day fun today with my usual collection of music.
Pi-Related Videos
As usual, here are some pi-related videos.
1. Inside Edition
Celebrate Pi Day and calm your fears by baking a pie.
2. "Pi Day Music Video" by musicnotes online
This video is also a few years old, but it's another one that I didn't notice until last year.
3. Parody of "Happy" by Pharrell Williams
This was first posted in 2015, but somehow I never noticed it until last year.
4. Parody of "Dynamite" by Taio Cruz
I've watched this video several times before. The students who create this video are 5th graders.
5. Alina Celeste sings 227 digits of pi
This is the first time I've posted this one, but it's another one that was made for Pi Day of the Century.
6. "Song from Pi" by Song Scout
I post this one almost every year. Song Scout writes a song where each pitch corresponds to one of the digits of pi. And this year, Song Scout adds a new video where he explains this song more:
7. How I Wrote a Song from Pi
8. Christopher Bill turns pi into music
This is a brand new song this year. Chris Bill uses the digits of pi as Song Scout and so many others have done, except the digits of pi correspond to the lengths, rather than pitches, of the notes.
9. Parody of "American Pie" by Don McLean
Because "pi" and "pie" sound alike, this is one of the most commonly parodied songs for Pi Day.
10. Parody of "Thrift Shop" by Macklemore
This is another one that I post almost every year.
11. "Pi Day Song" by Michael Bautista
This song was created last year. And of course, its length is 3 minutes and 14 seconds.
12. "Pi Day Anthem" by John Sims and Vi Hart
This duet is mostly just reciting digits. The length of the song is also 3:14, although there are a few extra seconds at the end of the video.
13. Vi Hart's Pi Day Rant 2020
Speaking of Vi Hart, It's Vi Day, the one day of the year when Vi Hart posts a video. She tells us that Pi Day has been canceled due to the Coronavirus.
This is just "part one" of the digits of pi. Of course, there are infinitely many parts.
Pi Music for Mocha
Oh, and let's not leave Mocha out of the fun:
http://www.haplessgenius.com/mocha/
70 N=1
80 FOR X=1 TO 32
90 READ A
100 SOUND 261-N*(18-A),4
110 NEXT X
120 DATA 3,1,4,1,5,9,2,6,5,3
130 DATA 5,8,9,7,9,3,2,3,8,4
140 DATA 6,2,6,4,3,3,8,3,2,7
150 DATA 9,5
As usual, click on the Sound button before you RUN the program.
This song is based on 18EDL. As I've said before with pi, 0 doesn't first appear until relatively late, which is way some musicians cut off the song just before the first 0.
For 18EDL, we use 0 and 9 as the tonic -- the beginning and ending of the scale. This might sound strange when there's no 0 to represent the root note. We might consider changing the song to 16EDL and make 1 and 9 the tonic notes. (This entails changing 18 to 17, not 16, in line 100.) I don't write about 16EDL much since it contains only one third -- a neutral 16/13 third. This sounds unfamiliar to modern music ears.
The above song was written in Song Scout's format -- each digit is another pitch. But suppose we wanted to write this song the Christopher Bill way, where each digit is another length. In Mocha this is easy, since the second parameter of the SOUND command already determines the length -- and indeed, we can use length 1 for a sixteenth note, 2 for an eighth note, and so on just like Chris Bill.
But then what will we do about the pitch of the notes? With our Mocha-Scout version, we just used length 4 and let every note be a quarter note. But we would not want to make every note in our Mocha-Bill version the same pitch -- and indeed, Bill himself doesn't do this.
Here's an idea -- why don't we choose an EDL and then let Mocha select the notes at random (as we were doing earlier)? Or better yet, let's have the user choose the EDL. Since the above program starts with line 70 anyway, let add some extra lines to the beginning to implement Bill's version:
10 CLS
20 INPUT "WHICH EDL";L
100 SOUND 261-N*(L+1-RND(L/2+1)),A
For example, for 18EDL, the randomizer chooses a number between 1 and 18/2+1 (that is, between 1 and 10) and then subtracts this from 18+1 = 19, resulting in a Degree between 18 and 9.
The simplest EDL that can be played here is 12EDL. We might wish to play 10EDL as well, since this scale sounds mostly major. In this case, the octave N can no longer be 1:
70 N=8
Using N=8, we can actually go all the way up to 32EDL if we wish.
Here are some EDL's to consider: we know that 10EDL sounds major with its 5/4 major third. And 12EDL sounds minor with its 6/5 minor third. Meanwhile, 14EDL has a 7/6 superminor third, while its 14/11 sort of sounds like a wide major third. I already wrote above that 16EDL has only a 16/13 neutral third.
All EDL's from 18EDL on have both a minor and a major third. It's possible that the randomizer will avoid one of the thirds, but most of the time both will be heard in each song.
It's actually possible to enter an odd EDL, although the 2/1 octave is no longer available. If we were to choose, say, 15EDL, the randomizer chooses a number between 1 and 8.5 (which Mocha interprets as 1 to 8) and then subtracts this from 16, giving us Degrees from 15 to 7. One of the notes given here is 5/4, a major third, and a major sixth (5/3) and seventh (15/8) are also available, but not the octave.
Chris Bill ends his version of the song at the 27th note (of length 8, a half note). We can change our version so that it also ends there. In fact, let's make it the 26th note, so that we can guarantee that the last half note is always on the tonic:
80 FOR X=1 TO 26
160 SOUND 261-N*L,8
If we use Degree L/2 instead of L (and keep N=8 or any even number), then Mocha will end the song at the top of the octave, even if the chosen EDL is odd.
More on Pi Day Parties
As I wrote yesterday, the Pi Day party was a bit awkward. It didn't help that it was an English class rather than math, and it didn't help that the coronavirus uncertainty was a distraction.
Many middle school students enjoy the songs I sing. They listen to them closely and keep repeating it on their way out the door. Freshmen continue to be enthusiastic about the songs -- sometimes they try to take a phone out and use their cameras to record them. But older students such as juniors and seniors tend to tune out -- if their phones are out, it's just to listen to their own music, not mine. So they end up just ignoring what I'm doing.
This is why I don't have any Algebra II songs. And when I subbed in the math class on Monday, I sang for Algebra I but not the Calculus or Statistics classes.
But yesterday's classroom had guitars and ukeleles, and so I just had to sing, even though the juniors and seniors simply ignored my songs for the most part. This isn't too bad since it's an English class anyway, but if I'm back in my own class someday, I want the students to enjoy the Pi Day party, not just use it as a free day for non-academic entertainment on phones and treat me as if I'm invisible. I do suspect that Geometry, the main focus of this blog, is right on the border between the younger students who enjoy my songs and the older students who ignore them.
Anyway, one thing that I do see yesterday besides phone use is game playing. It's amazing how popular the card game Uno is in classrooms, and I saw it played yet again yesterday. I also saw some students in another class play chess.
And so it might be possible to convert Uno into a Pi Day game. Most of the cards are already numbered, so we ignore the colors and have the students play the cards 3, 1, 4, 1, 5, in order. So instead of taking turns in order, any player who has a 3 goes first, and then any player who has a 1 can go next. If two players have a 1, then it's a race for the first player who places the 1 in the pile -- so this adds a little something different (speed) to a traditional Uno game.
Notice that the first 0 in pi comes relatively late (as we saw above with the digit music). And also, the digit 1 appears twice early, then doesn't appear again until after the first 0. (Watch the John Sims/Vi Hart video above, where the positions of the 1's are made obvious.) This will be problematic for players who hold 0's or 1's in their hand.
These rules aren't complete yet -- and maybe I'll come up with them by next Pi Day. For example, what happens we reach, say, the second 9 and no one's hand still contains a 9? It might be that all the players must take an extra card, and keep doing so until someone catches a 9.
Also, I must decide what to do about special cards such as Draw Two, Reverse, and so on. We might decide to keep Wild to represent any digit (but play it strategically), but leave Reverse and Skip (since we aren't playing in order anyway) out of the deck. Or perhaps Skip can mean skip a digit of pi (but then it wouldn't differ from Wild) and Reverse means play the digits backward (but then what it's played early and we make it all the way back to the initial 3).
If we keep Draw 2 and Draw 4, who must draw? Perhaps the one who plays these cards can choose who gets to draw them. But then they'll always make the opponent who called out "Uno!" take the cards to prevent a win -- and then the game might never end.
If I go this route, then the period on Pi Day can start with placing several games out and letting students choose a game. As the teacher, I can go around to each group, make sure that they are playing them right, and seeing who wins (with the winners getting an extra Pi Day treat).
Then at 1:59, the games end and pizza or fruit pie is served. I can perform any Pi Day songs that I choose to play at this time, while the food is being served. At this point, it's now OK if the students choose to put on earbuds and ignore me.
Yesterday I ate pizza along with the last class of the day. Today I ate pizza again -- 7-Eleven had a Pi Day special where a large pizza costs only pi dollars ($3.14). This is similar to the $2.29 pizza special they had for Leap Day.
Oh, and of course I'm eating cherry pie, my favorite Pi Day dessert. In fact, I'm eating it right after I complete today's post.
On my Eleven Calendar, today is Sunday, the third day of the week. And this is a flaw with my calendar -- Pi Day falls on the Christian sabbath, when all schools are closed. The reason this happens is because Pi Day and Christmas Day are exactly 286 (11 * 26) days apart. Notice that the 3rd, 14th, and 25th of any month are always Sundays (so we don't escape by saying, oh, March isn't the third month on my calendar, so it would be 3/14, because May 14th, the new 3/14, is also Sunday).
It's possible to redesign my calendar to avoid this problem. But I'd have to make a new decision regarding how to organize the 11-day week and when Christmas should be on my calendar.
Conclusion
In some ways, Pi Day on the blog feels a lot like Pi Day 2017. That year, I took long breaks from posting in March due to the situation with leaving the old charter school. This year, I'm posting up to and on Pi Day itself, but am taking some breaks from posting due to the coronavirus school closures.
When 9/11 first happened, I said to myself that it's easy to tell how serious a tragedy is just by seeing what cancellations it causes. As I wrote in my September 11th post, I first thought that 9/11, while sad, was something that mainly affected New Yorkers (and their families). The seriousness of it all hit home when all baseball games -- not just those in NYC -- were canceled, as were football games that following Sunday.
This coronavirus is serious even compared to other pandemics -- and I can tell, because look at what cancellations it's caused. All major sporting events are canceled, with the Olympics in doubt. And all schools are closed, which will be tough for me as a sub.
And I'm worried because hiring season for teachers is just about to start. I want to apply to math teaching positions (so I can have my own classroom by next Pi Day), but with the schools closed, there's no one to read my application. So not only am I worried about my paycheck in the short run (if schools wind up closed for more than, say, a month), but I also think about my long-term future. Will any new teachers be hired this year at all?
Just like last year, I'm posting this at 1:59 AM Greenwich time. Expect the next spring break post in about a week.
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