Melting my brain on chromatic pi 

A harder challenge is playing Pi backwards. Most of the time is taken up by trying to find the first note

The voice part makes the whole piece sound like some kind of somber, almost funeral-like, march or ritual chant. It was honestly soothing.

I don’t know if I should be awed by this incredible video or just horrified that someone even has this many different musical instruments and can play them.

Why is this how I spend my time? Is anyone else foolish enough to try this challenge? Here's where you can get the coin and other merch until the end of March: store.dftba.com/collections/vi-hart And here's the complete challenge: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-iWFJDqq035k.html

Vi totally needs to sing her original Tau song again for not only Tau Day but also for the 10th anniversary of her video titled "A video about a Circle Constant" that she posted 10 years ago. The 10th anniversary of that video is coming up pretty soon and it would be so beautiful and sort of emotional if Vi ended up recreating that video and singing that cute little song again. It would all just come full circle too and in this case a constant circle. 🔴🎶🎵

The fact you’re playing a fretless bass is hilarious to me, this is a hard challenge and you’re making it harder for yourself

i recently got into your videos and felt sort of bad that you haven't uploaded that many videos recently, so it's a really pleasant surprise to see you back :)

Cellist checking in here: Tenor clef is very useful for us. There are many pieces that have extended sections 4, 5, or 6 ledger lines above bass clef. Tenor is used to make it easier for us to read. That said, it's obviously NOT our primary clef.

There’s solace in this video for me, knowing that others out there also have days where they turn to mush even in their most confident skills. Thanks for sharing :)

"Tenor clef should be obsolete. There's never a reason for it and no one likes it!" *angry cellist noises* (Cool fact: tenor clef is a fifth up from bass clef, so it's super easy if you play a bass instrument tuned in fifths, like the cello!)

Hey Vi! I just wanna say thanks for making such great end enjoyable videos. I have made an amazing love of (fun) Mathmatics because of your vids. Thanks Vi!

I’m a music student and I’m planning how I’d do this. My primary is classical saxophone. I’d read the treble clef version on soprano sax, the bass clef on Bari sax (if you play bari sax you know that this works), play the tenor clef one on a bass sax (thank you to my university for letting me use it this quarter for sax choir but this’ll suck), tabs on guitar, alto clef on alto sax (it’s weird but I’ve done it before). Treble up an octave will of course be piano. all of these parts I WILL sight transpose for the saxophones that I’ll be playing. The bass sax will be played two octaves lower than written. That will be my challenge. And you comment about big instruments being expensive is so true, that bass sax that I’m using from my uni is almost $30,000.

I fear the Pizza John eye glaring at me over the bass guitar playing spooky pi music...

“For viola that’s the always vibe” too real

I've missed your videos so much 😭 Glad you're back!

I feel like we violists have a distinct advantage in the Grand Challenge stakes.

As a cellist, I will not stand for this Tenor Clef slander! It is the superior clef! My trombonist and bassoonist compatriots and I will band together to defend the honor of the tenor clef!!

“Tabs in general aren’t the easiest notation to read” Oh well beg your pardon, Ms. Hoity-Toity Pianist! But no, my high school music teacher once told me there’s a sharp difference between guitar players and guitarists. Tabs are definitely the language of the guitar player while standard notation is basically reserved for the guitarist. Personally I understand both but am fluent in neither. I’m more of a folk musician. I need to hear a piece and play around with it for a minute and then I can usually get it with varying accuracy. But then again I have a pretty good ear for music. It’s my weird autistic savant thing I guess.

It's so haunting, I love it

Excellent! What a lovely maddening challenge. And I really liked your beautiful bass pick guard, so pretty! I can't wait for your Jamey Abersold "Pi in All Keys" book!

Your singing voice is gorgeous.

I actually like the haunting sound of that, it reminds me of the band Guapo.

Good to know you’re still alive, Vihart.

Vi is _so_ amazing. This "tune" was growing on me by the end of the video. I think it would sound great on a theremin!

As a trombonist and cellist, I do feel a need to stick up for tenor clef. Once you learn to read it, it's actually easier to parse than all those lines above the staff that you get when playing high notes. Do I *like* tenor clef? Absolutely not; whenever I see it it's a part that's difficult both to read and to play because it's so high. But heck if I'm not going to stick up for it.

i’ve watched your videos for so many years and i always get excited when you return

The description of viola as mindmelting, repetitive, no melody vibes unlocked some ASTONISHINGLY deep memories of being bored silly in elementary school orchestra with a viola. So, thanks? I guess for revealing that part of my psyche to me

This is extremely impressive. I know pi day is big video day... but this year, omg!

Love your videos, so entertaining!

We love you Vihart❤️

Back when I wasn't broke, I supported you on patreon. Now that all I have to my name is an amazon giftcard, I plan on ordering one of these adorable triangles if and only if I can figure out how to do that without giving bezos my credit card info. more importantly though- I intend to respond to this challenge in my own way- not only will these notes be played in order, they will be played in changing time signatures(a few bars of 3, then, 1, then 4, then 1, etc...) and there will be accompaniment to make it sound as musical as possible.but it'll still be pretty out there, obviously,. when it's done i'll shamelessly self plug in this comment section, but here's y'all's warning :) update april 3: vihart responded to me. what. bought a mic for this. I can play through about the first half pretty fluidly by now and stumble through the rest but those 9/8 5/8 transitions kill. the chords for the guitar backing are mostly written. much schoenberg. my drumset is pretty broken but i'm trying to get a good tone out of it. give me a few more weeks everyone. maybe check out my other music in the mean time? it can get very prog/mathey :). "exterminatordale archive 3" still has some stuff on it that i'm pretty proud of. I promise it sounds different from what you've heard before ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Vi, i have been following you for almost 10 years now, and every PI day i jump on to check your video because honestly you pi day videos now are one of the things I can count on in my life!

you know brett and eddy are going to be all over this.

I am a Tuba and Trombone player! I have both sitting on the floor of my room right now, and I commend you for trying to play Bass clef without much practice. I unfortunately have forgotten how to read Treble clef due to playing bass so much. One day, i'm sure I'll relearn it, but right now it's fine because I don't have to read treble clef in my day to day.

Flexes in the video: She does more than one video per day She can read Bass Clef She is not intimidated by low brass She plays fretless Bass She has a music degree She's a composer She plays Viola and knows theres an Alto clef made for it (I was today yrs old) Same as above for Tenor clef and Voice She owns a Bosendorfer!!! There's a merch store

This is demented! I love it!

I watched your videos a lot and I wanna tell you that your a good singer and very smart.

hi vihart ive been watching u since i was probably 7 im 16 now, i used to not understand a word u were saying but ur so captivating. i always come back to ur videos bc ur voice is nostalgic and relaxing and i love ur tone sm ur so eloquent and easy to understand all the time, sometimes ur videos r what i need to sleep or distract myself from a bummy mood. also i like the math u teach a lot, ur the person who made me learn mathematicians r the cool guys and math teachers r kinda depressing

Use a base 12 counting system for the digits of Pi, and then you've got 1 note per digit.

Glad you’re still making content, I found a 11 year old video and loved it, but got sad to check your channel because so often older channels just die. But you have made so much amazing content and illustrations! I hope you do continue, I learn a lot

You are a hero to many and I am inspired to be among them.

boutta crush this on the snare drum

So, I just finished watching “Steve Mould - The Planets Are Weirdly In Sync” about orbital resonance. When he used a piano to help explain the orbital periods of different moons and plants I thought… what would everyone’s favorite mathemusician make of this? I’m sure my average human brain missed a plethora of fascinating ways to view this so I decided that a youtube comment was the best way to inspire your beautiful brain to give it a think. If I’m right, that a youtube comment is indeed the best way to Vi’s heart, my future might be filled with colors, shapes, and sounds, below a carpet of seemingly endless and addicting stream of syllables explaining points of view I never imagined. Bye Vi, see ya.

Wow i am so happppppppy you uploaded

You have such a beautiful voice. Both talking and singing. I had no idea you were so versed in music. I really need to watch more of your videos it seems. So much has gotten past me.

I feel like the real hard mode would've been "play these notes, by any means to make it sound 'good'" fiddling with rhythm mid-song and maybe grouping multiple upcoming notes into "chords" in an attempt to make something recognised as music

Since your pi day video, ive been rewatching all of your videos. I was so excited when i saw you posted, even if its late in the evening for me.

As always, I loved the video Vi.

At 9:00 when the voice starts playing, to me i felt like i was in a dark souls game with this etherial choral voice juxtaposed with someone talking like they are losing their humanity.

I’ve been watching your videos since I found you in 6th grade! I’ve now graduated high school almost a year ago, and I still greatly enjoy your content. Thank you for all of the really cool videos!!

Discovered your channel recently, and i'm impressed by how you're keeping the pace for 12+ years, still making videos, pretty much from the beginning of RU-vid itself This is RU-vid history alive and writing itself.

Wasn't expecting a viola joke on this channel but I'm glad you went there ;)

I'm reassured that when I was trying to play/turn a sudoku puzzle into a song with no musical training that was not to ridiculous or bad. And the mushy brain headache is normal for good musicians doing a similar challenge. It was a fun feel of practicing my sight-reading away from standard notation.

Tenor clef is actually super helpful for bassoonists as the range is so immense. Everyone hates tenor clef until leger lines

I still think one of the comments (no, I'm NOT going back there to provide a link!) on the "original" 2022 pie-day-video had it right: using a diatonic scale, pi should be expressed in base 8; using a chromatic scale, it should be expressed in base 12. Or you could have pi in base 5 and have some pentatonic blues fun! (while arguing about which scale to use: pentatonic major or minor)

Violist and cellist here, alto is absolutely my favorite clef

This really feels like something I'd do, but I really love this though It reminds me of when I was making my cartoon show back in August (2021). I had been working on the show since the August before that (2020) so I was excited it was almost ready with a first full length episode. I was gonna release it on my birthday and I was super excited, but OH NOOOOOO it turns out I actually somehow had things to do and people to be with on my birthday (imagine) and so I didn't get it done. It was August 19th and I didn't even have one of the main character's voiced lines. I felt like I had lead every one of my subscribers on for like a half a year since I announced the thing and now it wasn't even gonna come out. I cancelled the thing after that to make a detective drama but I've started making it again because I realised that it would never leave my head if I didn't make this show, and that's been motivating me a lot. I guess that's my grand challenge as an animator

OMG THIS IS IT! It's the Vihart brandsperience video we've all been waiting for :D

The voice actually kinda brings it together. Very cool

This is the song I would expect to be in the background as I was figuring out that I am actually the ghost, witnessing my own murder

Feels so bad that Tau has been neglected this pi day :(

I own a guitar from my youth twenty five years ago. I dug it out on pi day but most of the strings were broken. A trip to the shop and a few RU-vid videos on how to replace plastic guitar strings later, I sat down to learn how to play guitar again. Two days later, I went through the challenge five times. The last time was ok and I only missed a few notes. I think I had an easier time of it because I have no expectations that what I play will sound like music so my brain didn't melt looking for the melody. I was just a machine turning dots into finger placement.

The viola section is very mood.

The vocals are my favorite: haunting.

I feel like a fun hard mode would be to treat the Pi line as a Cantus firmus or a figured bass line, and improvise accompaniment to it

I found you for a 10 years old video... cool to see you're still around!

Thank you !! Your videos are the best

ooh I really like that pearl inlay on the guitar

I'm so glad I'm not the only one who sometimes feels as though she's in a Salvador Dali painting.

Oh wow, is this what gets me back into playing flute? I haven’t touched it in almost a year because of braces that make it a kind of unpleasant experience but I’m getting them off pretty soon. And I’m really only a mediocre flautist, but an excellent sight-reader, so this actually sounds kind of fun. I could try now on the piano, but that really would be my worst nightmare, I can’t sight-read for anything on the piano, even the treble clef which you’d think I would know from the flute. But really, this could be great! I’ve been kind of worried that I’ll loose all my skill because I just don’t make time to play in my day-to-day life, but I think a shiny coin could really motivate me!

This is so cool! I have a guqin and I feel like it would fair quite well in the drama factor, it’s got open notes, pressed notes, slides, and harp notes so I feel like if I had the skill I could make an interesting piece. I’ve always loved the correlation of math and music despite me hating math haha

VI HART’S EXISTENTIAL MATH-based BASS LESSONS

wait you're a professional composer? How awesome is that! Viola is an awesome insrument and pizzicato viola+harpsichord is a thing of dreams Awesomely surprised that playing pi digits comes out so expressive. Didn't expect it to lie on a minor scale (does it actually? It just sounds so dramatic but I'm no musician)

So cool! Sounds like something you would hear in one of those Twilight zones knockoffs.... good and chilling

That's a very neat bass

I’ve been watching for 10 years now 😂😂

8:28 "I don't know what notes are anymore or why I exist" really made my day haha

Now please compose a full orchestral arrangement to go with this melody. :D

Just tried a WHOLE-TONE SCALE treatment of pi to 95 decimal places, and I like it. 1=C, 2=D, 3=E, 4=F#, 5=G#, 6=A#, 7=C (octave up from 1), 8=D (sim.), 9=E (sim.). 0= REST. All quarter notes and quarter rests except the first E, which I made a half note (basically because I mentally sing the syllables "three point" as two beats before I start reciting the decimals). Try it - you might like the effect. I never noticed that it takes a while for 0 to come up for the first time in the sequence of pi digits, so the first "phrase" is a long one. Then we get a few shorter phrases, including some reasonably tonal ones. And speaking of tonality - I'm a fan. I'll take Ravel over Webern any day. The whole-tone pi gives us a fair number of tritones, but also lots of major thirds and some nice jumping (octaves, major ninths, major tenths) here and there. I'll play around with some canonic treatment & report back. Vi Hart, thanks for getting me started on this! Maybe next Pi Day can be a whole-tone challenge, with counterpoint.

My brain is shaped very well thank you very much

Tenor clef is associated with cello. You should have no trouble transferring your viola skills to the cello - same tuning, different clef

As a bass player, I can 100% confirm that you can play the bass well without reading bass clef... I have tried to learn to sight-read so many times and I just cannot get it. I am in awe of your skills

That's a really cool bass

As a bassist, lmao yeah. I love fretless bass (my primary bass is fretless) but it's really hard to learn. Once you get it down though, it sounds so good

What an absolute treat time to play some piano ❤️

20+ comments from people who could not possibly have watched the whole video yet, even at x2 speed.

That bass guitar is really pretty.

I'm 20 seconds into the video and it's great

So now the question is... What can you do like this for Tau day?

This is so great!!

Totally understand the brain turning to mush. A few years ago I made a musical Pi thing on Tux Guitar (lol because it's all I had and I don't have much musical skill at all) and the project almost made me go insane. It's uploaded on my videos if anyone is interested ;) Can't even imagine having to play this on musical instruments!

As a bassoonist (something I did decades ago) I had to read both bass and tenor clef. And sometimes switch quickly between 'em. You have way more patience than me. Looks like your bass is a fretless, which, I would think, would make the task much harder.

"Tenor Clef: No one's preferred clef" Laughs in 1st Trombone

My choices, but I'm going for the golden ratio instead since it is said to produce more pleasing art: 𝄟 - piano 𝄞 - whistling 𝄠 - guitar 𝄡 - voice 𝄣 - trombone 𝄢 - tuba (E♭) 𝄤 - tuba (B♭)

idk why, but i expected the [G R A N D C H A L L E N G E] would be do it with a swing rhythm

You posted this so I assumed it had a happy ending (or at least one you were fine with) but dang it was hard watching you suffer like that for some completely arbitrary and self-imposed challenge. I was legitimately worried that you would push yourself to finish this regardless of how unhealthy it ended up being.

0:21 YOU pulled out my brain and you twisted it into a new shape.

Me discovering this mid-April after the challenge is closed: 😔 My instinct was to try using Nashville numbers and an arbitrary tempo. Who knows? I may do it anyway just for fun!

I want to rewrite Pi in base 12 and apply it to the scale. I think it sounds weird because two notes nest to each other are being skipped - A and A flat. Another option would be to use a different scale. Skip C# and F# would be like a C jazz scale #9

Fretless bass nice!