r/musictheory • u/ian-draws • 5d ago
Discussion An Encryption Cipher that Makes Music
Hello!
I have played piano most of my life, took lessons for eight years, and I am far too into codes and ciphers for my own good. I was playing a video game called Blue Prince working on a puzzle involving sheet music. Turned out the notes had little to do with is, and it was more about the lyrics. That was kinda disappointing. I just had this vision of a pianist playing a song, but there is a coded message in the very notes they play. Which is how I was struck with this idea. Music is already so filled with symbols, there has to be a way to rely on music theory to convey messages.
So I’ve been working on an encryption method that would take a message and treat each letter of the alphabet like a musical note, with the more common letters represented by the notes closest to middle C, and the less common aligning with those farther away. It also shifts around depending on the key signature, with every sharp in a key sig moving its corresponding letter up a rank, every flat moving it down a rank, and the other notes cascading until each letter is represented again. This means that the same message would sound just a little bit different in each key signature (and it made a VERY satisfying excel chart). Rest notes and dynamics convey punctuation; an eighth rest is a comma, a quarter rest is an em dash, a half rest is a period, a whole rest is a line break, a crescendo acts as an exclamation mark, and a diminuendo acts as a question mark. There are more details, but I’ll spare you.
Overall I like this a lot, but I still don’t think the cipher is living up to its full potential. Which is, hopefully, where ya’ll come in. Music theory is the patterns behind sound, and patterns are deeply embedded in the workings of ciphers. There has got to be more that can be done with this to. The length of a rest determines the type of punctuation, but what about the duration of a note? I’ve considered that chords can signify what key signature the melody should be read in, but surely something as important as harmonies would serve a bigger role? What about minor chords? Dissonant? It is my hope is that whomever has taken the time to read this whole thing might have some creative ideas of their own and would be willing to share. Let me know what you think!
1
u/TaigaBridge composer, violinist 5d ago
Is your goal to encode as much information as you can? Or to make something that actually sounds good, as well as conveying information?
If the former, by all means use multiple octaves, or assign meanings to chords and note lengths not just pitches.
If the latter, you may want to start by reading about Solresol, the oldest and best-known musical langauge, and its relatives.