Harken, a 'future' review by ChatGPT 4o

AI envisions one of many new games and applications possible with the Harken Music system.

Title: A Symphony of Memory and Challenge - Harken Takes Educational Gaming to a New Level

Rating: ★★★★★ (5/5)

As someone who enjoys puzzles and has a passion for both music and mathematics, I can confidently say that Harken is a game like no other. The concept brilliantly merges the precision of the Harken Music system with an addictive memory challenge that grows progressively more intense as you ascend through its levels of difficulty. Here’s a breakdown of my experience with the game.

User Interface & Design

The minimalist, yet beautifully designed interface immediately caught my attention. The dodecagon layout, where each segment represents a musical note (as shown in the preview graphic), is clean and intuitive. With each successful "call and response," the notes light up with vivid colors, and the seamless transitions make the entire experience feel like you're creating a visual and auditory masterpiece.

The progression is incredibly satisfying. Early levels (e.g., combinations of 2-4 notes) feel approachable, yet challenging enough to keep you engaged. For someone new to the world of the Harken Music system, these early levels offer an accessible way to dip your toes into the vast mathematical depth of the system. However, as you begin to reach the higher combination numbers and permutation counts, the challenge scales exponentially, keeping even the most seasoned players on their toes.

Gameplay - Call and Response Mechanic

The core "call and response" mechanic is where Harken truly shines. At the start of each round, the game plays a sequence of notes, both visually and sonically. I loved how the color scheme and musical notes combined to enhance memorization. It wasn’t just about remembering notes but connecting with the rhythm and symmetry within the harmonic combinations.

In lower levels, the patterns feel relatively manageable. For example, the third level challenge (triads) has a combination like [3, 0, 7], and with only six permutations, it requires 18 correct responses to complete. But by the time I was pushing towards more advanced levels, such as tetrachords or pentatonics, the permutations started to make my brain work overtime. I found myself drawing on both musical intuition and raw memory skill, creating a blend of mental exercises that felt wholly unique.

Challenge Levels

Harken's 12 levels of difficulty are where things truly escalate. As you reach "Master" and beyond, the sheer number of permutations per combination grows daunting. I personally stopped at Level VI (Expert), which required responding to 12 permutations. At that point, the game felt like a workout for my brain. The pinnacle, though—Level XII with its whopping 1,193,556,233 permutations—feels more like an unearthly challenge designed for AI rather than humans. Still, I love that it’s there, as it shows the mathematical power of the system. Who knows, maybe one day we'll see someone break records like those in the Pi memorization challenges.

Learning Through Play

What truly sets Harken apart from other memory games is that it subtly teaches music theory and harmonic combinations through gameplay. By the time I reached higher levels, I realized I was becoming more adept at identifying patterns in music, especially as I learned to recognize specific intervals and harmonic groupings (e.g., triads, tetrachords). It’s a fascinating way to apply the Harken Music system in a way that doesn’t feel overtly educational yet naturally builds musical understanding.

Sound & Harmony

The auditory component of Harken is as essential as its visual cues. The use of MIDI.js allows the notes to be pure and harmonic, creating a beautiful sonic landscape as you play. While it’s challenging, it never feels frustrating. There’s something incredibly satisfying about hearing those notes progress in perfect harmony as you correctly respond. The game's musicality helps you stay grounded even when the difficulty ramps up.

Room for Improvement?

If there’s one area where Harken could be even better, it’s in offering more robust hints or tutorials for beginners unfamiliar with the mathematical aspect of the Harken Music system. That said, the included difficulty scaling does help ease newcomers in gradually, so the learning curve isn’t too steep.

Final Verdict

In conclusion, Harken is an innovative, mentally engaging, and musically rich memory game that pushes the limits of what I thought a memory challenge could be. Whether you’re a novice looking to have fun with music or a master seeking an extreme cognitive workout, Harken offers an immersive experience. I can see this game becoming a favorite for musicians, puzzle enthusiasts, and anyone with a love for patterns and numbers. You’ll find yourself coming back for “just one more round” again and again.

Harken is not just a game—it’s an exploration of music, memory, and the beauty of combinatorics, all wrapped into a seamless, challenging experience.

***

Please read the article “The Future of Music is Math” and “Harken Music: A New Mathematical Framework for 12-Tone Harmony”. Then try our open-source HTML/Javascript demo* at harkenmusic.com to see and hear everything for yourself. Using this demo, you can choose any combination size (from 1 to 12 notes) from the pull-down menu; then select any particular combination from the numbered list, to view and hear all permutations, reflections (inversions), and rotations (transpositions).

*Note: a desktop or laptop computer and current web browser are required for using the demo, but there’s no download or sign up required.

All of 12-tone music is calculable using only this high school-level math.

After exhaustive online research, including extensive prompting of multiple AIs/LLMs, such as ChatGPT4o, Perplexity AI, and Gemini, and consulting with numerous musicians and mathematicians, it appears Harken represents a new discovery. The first system ever to use only math to calculate, produce, and play all of the ≈1.2 billion harmonic structures that are possible in 12-tone music.

It cannot be overstated that this new system uses only mathematics and math related programming code. The programming does not include or use any databases, lookup tables, or other sources of data. Everything—nearly 1.2 billion musical combinations and permutations—is calculated on the fly.

Constructive comments, suggestions, and ideas are welcome.

This information and related software code are now available for free on HarkenMusic.com and Github as open-source software under the standard MIT License set forth below.

License

Copyright 2024 Mitchell Kahle and Holly J. Huber

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the “Software”), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED “AS IS”, WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.