Although computers haven’t gained prominence before our very modern age, the concept has, in various early forms, existed for centuries, including back in the 1650s, and one musical artist has decided to recreate a baroque music computer using plans he found in a book.
Notably, a 17th century Jesuit scholar Athanasius Kircher invented an information device to allow non-musicians to compose church music, and Levi McClain described its similarities to mechanical computers, like slide rules, having made the machine himself and explaining the process in a recent video.
Specifically, McClain used the plans from Kircher’s book to create the automatic music composition device called Arca Musarithmica, which comprises a box of wooden rods or tablets with numbers corresponding to notes in a scale or mode, in addition to coded rhythmic instructions.
If you feel like getting your hands on this cool piece of music history, you don’t necessarily need to embark on the same adventure as McClain (although you can, and it would certainly make a fun DIY project), as there are other replicas available on the World Wide Web.
Arca Musarithmica – a baroque music computer or not?
Indeed, the Arca Musarithmica is arguably one of the predecessors to computer compositional techniques of the 20th century, although there are differences in perceiving it as an actual computer. According to McClain, who created the device from Kircher’s original designs:
“The Arca isn’t really a computer in the sense it is mechanical or automatic. You won’t find any working parts or gears inside. (…) The Arca is a computer in that it computes. It computes four-part vocal harmony for any text or lyrics, but the user was meant to do most of the heavy lifting.”
Elsewhere, another 17th century concept has crawled its way into today’s computing. As it happens, a 380-year-old mathematics process pioneered by French scholar Pierre de Fermat can break some methods of modern encryption in the Internet of Things (IoT) devices, forcing companies to reconsider their cybersecurity approach.
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