A project in aleatoric music where image becomes sound.

On graph paper: 

Create x-axis of 16 points. These points represent steps on a 16-step sequencer to control a synthesizer. 

Create y-axis of several sets of 7 points. This is the range of octaves (C-B) that you wish to use as your framework. Each octave corresponds to Scientific Pitch Notation (C1-B1, C2-B2, C3-B3, etc.). Label each point as a note value in order for each octave.

Draw a box that encompasses this quadrant.

Draw a simple self-portrait in line only.

Place a point on every intersection of note value and sequence steps that intersect with a line from the self-portrait. This is a note value for a sequence step.

If there is only 1 value per step, that is the step's note value.

If there is no note value for a step, that is a rest for 1 step.

If there are multiple values for a step, add the frequencies and find the average of those frequencies. (Example: E2 = 82.407 Hz. D4 = 293.66 Hz, F4 = 349.23 Hz. Their sum is 725.297 Hz. The average of those frequencies is 241.76566. The closest pitch to that average pitch is B3 (246.94 Hz)).

These averages can be incidentals, that is sharps and flats.

List all incidentals and look for the music keys, or scales, that contain all or the majority of these incidentals. The key with the most incidentals from your list is now the key of your musical sequence (Example: List is- C#/Db, Ab/G#, Eb/D#, Bb/A#.  The key B Major has all of these incidentals- B, C#, D#, E, F#, G#, A#).

Change all note values to reflect this key (Example: D4 is the only value for step 3, after establishing a key of B Major, that value is now D#4).

Self-portrait for Chris Scholl in 16 Steps #1, where x = rest for 1 step:

x, D#4, F#3, B3, C#2, D#2, x, G#3, B2, D#3, C#3, G#2, D#1, F#4, A#4, F#2