Freshman honors algebra students Maltese Holder (East Windsor), Lisbeth Contreras (Trenton) and Allen Harrison (Trenton) practice their composition, set to the tune of Pi.
Trenton Catholic Academy students celebrated Pi Day by making music.
TCA’s freshmen honors algebra class learned how to use the mathematical constant of pi to write original music for piano.
Pi, commonly referred to as 3.14 with a never-ending set of numbers, is the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. TCA teachers working in a partnered environment wanted to show some of the commonalities between math and music.
Music teacher Susan King taught some basics, including note length, a scale, and how to arrange music into 12 bars of 4 beats each. Students drew numbers 0 through 9 on a keyboard.
Math teacher Michael Radaszkiewicz told the students to use the first 15 digits of pi and to correspond them with the numbers on the keys.
“The students quickly picked up the process and were eager to play their compositions,” King said in a statement, “they learned how to manipulate the notes and their duration to get the sound how they wanted. The results were surprisingly musical.”
One student played his violin to accompany a partner on their song.
The two teachers are researching more ways to combine lessons that show similarities between math and music.
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