Harken Music Puzzle Review
Challenging new interactive puzzle game for musicians and non-musicians alike.
Harken Music Puzzle Game: A User Review
Rating: ★★★★☆ (4.5/5)
As a music and math enthusiast, discovering Harken, a new and innovative music puzzle game based on the principles of the Harken Music system, was a moment of profound musical enlightenment. Designed with precision and creativity, this game intertwines music theory, mathematics, and interactive play to create an experience that’s as intellectually stimulating as it is enjoyable. Here’s my take after hours of testing and play.
Gameplay Overview
The core challenge in Harken lies in completing dynamic puzzle tables. Each puzzle begins with a pre-filled row of numbers representing musical notes, colors, and MIDI playback pitches. Players are tasked with decoding and filling the rest of the grid by employing bi-directional transformations such as rotations and reflections. With no databases or lookup tables involved, the game’s logic stems entirely from real-time mathematical calculations. The result? A seamless blend of creativity and computational brilliance.
Design & Aesthetic
The minimalistic design is intuitive, with a responsive and dynamic HTML interface. Each cell updates with colors and notes synced to the tempo. The RGB-alpha color mapping for notes 0–11 adds vibrancy without overwhelming the senses. These subtle yet thoughtful touches elevate the user experience.
Top Features
1. Customizable Puzzle Sizes
From a single cell to a colossal 12x12 matrix, Harken accommodates all levels of complexity. Solving a 5x5 rotation puzzle was a satisfying challenge, while the 12x12 tested my patience and pattern recognition to the limit.
2. Transformations
Rotations (Prime/Retrograde): Offered a fascinating exploration of modal scales.
Reflections (Inverse/Inverse Retrograde): Added depth by introducing tonic-axis symmetry.
Each type introduces its own flavor of strategy, making every puzzle unique and challenging.
3. Real-Time Sound & Visual Sync
The MIDI.js playback, paired with the interactive alpha animations, ensures every input feels rewarding. This synchronization makes it more than a puzzle—it’s a musical performance.
4. Dynamic Difficulty Levels
With tempo adjustments (Slow, Medium, Fast) and hints to guide beginners, the game remains accessible while catering to seasoned players.
5. Mathematical Integrity
The fixed tonic approach, recursive permutations, and systematic transformations reflect the Harken Music system’s mathematical backbone. Completing the 9x9 retrograde puzzle felt like solving a musical Rubik’s Cube.
Areas for Improvement
While Harken impressed on all fronts, a few tweaks could enhance the experience:
Octave Options: Allowing users to assign custom MIDI numbers for transpositions would be fantastic for advanced users.
Scoring System: A leaderboard or progress tracker could encourage replayability and friendly competition.
Mobile Optimization: Although responsive, touch controls on smaller devices felt slightly clunky.
Final Thoughts
Harken is more than a game—it’s a gateway to understanding the interconnected worlds of music and mathematics. Its reliance on algorithmic logic rather than static data makes every puzzle feel fresh and challenging. Whether you’re a music theory novice or a seasoned musician, Harken offers an experience that’s engaging, educational, and endlessly rewarding.
So, are you ready to transform numbers into colorful melodies? Dive into Harken—you’ll never hear or see music the same way again.
The above is a faux review, composed by ChatGPT 4o in about one minute after analyzing a single detailed prompt from the author/creator of the Harken Music system. A follow-up question, regarding the potential benefits of playing this proposed Harken puzzle game to improve early childhood education, prompted the following response from ChatGPT4o.
Playing the Harken puzzle game offers several early childhood education benefits, particularly in areas of cognitive development, creativity, and foundational music theory:
1. Math and Logic Skills
Pattern Recognition: Identifying and completing numerical sequences strengthens pattern recognition abilities.
Problem Solving: Completing puzzles based on rotations, reflections, and transformations develops logical thinking and strategic planning.
Spatial Reasoning: The grid-based format enhances understanding of spatial relationships and symmetry.
2. Music Theory Fundamentals
Chromatic Awareness: Exposure to all 12 tones of the chromatic scale fosters an understanding of pitch relationships beyond traditional major and minor scales.
Note-Color-Sound Association: Associating numbers with specific colors and MIDI pitches builds a multi-sensory foundation for pitch identification.
Intervals and Transformations: Hands-on experience with musical transformations introduces basic concepts of modes, inversions, and retrogrades.
3. Cognitive Development
Memory Skills: Remembering sequences and transformations enhances short- and long-term memory.
Attention and Focus: Completing puzzles requires sustained attention, which improves concentration and task persistence.
Multitasking: Managing visual, auditory, and cognitive inputs simultaneously encourages coordination across mental faculties.
4. Creativity and Musicality
Interactive Music Making: Active engagement with musical notes helps children connect with music in an exploratory and fun way.
Improvisation Skills: Experimenting with transformations fosters creativity and the ability to think musically.
5. Social and Emotional Development
Confidence Building: Success in solving puzzles instills a sense of achievement and boosts self-esteem.
Collaboration and Sharing: Cooperative gameplay encourages teamwork and shared learning experiences.
By engaging with the Harken puzzle game, children will gain a balanced introduction to music, math, and problem-solving, laying the groundwork for advanced skills in these areas while keeping the process fun and interactive.
One last prompt before my ChatGPT 4o session expired. “What if the game allowed players to export their puzzle results as audio files or even ringtones?”
That’s a fantastic idea! Allowing players to export their puzzle results as audio files or ringtones adds a layer of engagement and personalization to the game. It would make the experience more interactive and give players a tangible result they can enjoy outside of the game itself.
Here are some benefits and ideas for implementing this feature:
1. Personalization: Players can create their own musical sequences from the puzzle game and use them as ringtones or alarms. It’s a unique way for them to carry a part of the game experience with them.
2. Enhanced Engagement: Being able to export results keeps players connected to the game. Every time they hear their puzzle's melody, they'll be reminded of their achievements, increasing engagement.
3. Cross-Platform Sharing: Players can share their creations with friends, creating a community aspect within the game. This could lead to increased word-of-mouth promotion.
4. Educational Value: If players can export melodies as MIDI or audio files, it also provides an opportunity for them to learn how melodies are structured, fostering creativity.
Technical Considerations:
MIDI Export: Exporting results as MIDI files would be relatively straightforward if you already have the game playing notes with MIDI.js. Players could then open the MIDI files in music composition software or a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) for further exploration.
Audio Files: Exporting as WAV or MP3 could be achieved by using the Web Audio API to generate the sound file, and then using a library like `Recorder.js` to capture the audio output.
Ringtone Creation: Offer a quick option to trim or loop the melody so it works as a ringtone.
This addition would make the game even more fun and versatile!
The dialog continued a while later with this prompt for ChatGPT4o…
This puzzle game could also be played statically, like any puzzle printed and published in a newspaper. Not as fun or rewarding, without sound or colors, but this still presents opportunity for some old-school repurposing.
Absolutely! A static version of this puzzle could work well as a printed challenge in a newspaper or puzzle book. It would allow players to engage with it offline, perhaps giving a sense of nostalgia for traditional puzzle-solving while still offering a unique twist with the 12-tone system.
You could even consider including the color map and challenge explanation for players to reference, adding some extra depth for those who want to explore the musical and mathematical side of the puzzle. It's a great way to repurpose the digital game into an accessible format for a wider audience.
It would also be cool, and especially with static, b&w printing, to randomly fill some of the cells, with a random, noise-like pattern, of numbers from the solution.
That's another great idea! Adding a noise pattern to a static, black-and-white puzzle could introduce an extra layer of challenge and intrigue, making the puzzle visually dynamic and slightly unpredictable. By randomly filling some of the cells, you can create a more complex and engaging puzzle experience, even without sound and color.
Here’s how you might approach this:
Randomness: Randomly fill some cells with numbers or patterns, leaving the majority of cells blank. This creates the “noise” effect.
Hints: Optionally, provide a few “starting” numbers or partial rows/columns as hints to guide the player, so they aren’t left completely without direction.
Puzzle Difficulty: Depending on how much noise you add, you can control the difficulty of the puzzle. The more cells that are randomly filled, the harder it becomes to solve, since fewer clues are available.
This can create a puzzle that feels like a cross between a traditional logic puzzle and a musical challenge, with the added benefit of allowing for a more tactile and analog puzzle experience.
For a detailed explanation of the high-school-level math used in creating the Harken Music system, please read, “The Future of Music is Math” by Mitch Kahle.
See also: “Harken Music: A New Mathematical Framework for 12-Tone Harmony”, by ChatGPT 4o, and for an even deeper dive into the mathematics, read Factorials and Fractions “Navigating the 12-tone matrix,” by Mitch Kahle.
Please try our free open-source demo* at harkenmusic.com, where 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 see and hear all permutations, reflections (inversions), and rotations (transpositions).
*Note: a desktop or laptop computer and current web browser (Chrome, Safari, etc.) are required for using the demo; however there are no downloads, sign-up, or subscription requirements.
It cannot be overstated that the Harken Music 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.
This information and related software code are available on HarkenMusic and Github as open-source software under the standard MIT License set forth below.
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.
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