An ear for Strudel · listening 04
Hear the space that stays.
Three audible notes in each line. Is the missing place silent, or gone?
Sound starts only when you press Listen.
No headphones? Follow the difference without sound.
Follow the difference without guessing
Silence still takes time.
A rest keeps its place in the sequence. Deleting that place redistributes the time.
Fractions of a cycle
e4 ~ b4 a4e4 b4 a4EThe first note gives a clueOpen the listening note0E4 · cycle 1slot 1/40E4 · cycle 1slot 1/3
A contains four places: E, a rest, B and A. E gets a quarter. B contains only three places, so its opening E gets a third. There is no invisible empty place left behind after deleting the rest.
The rest is not a longer E. In A, the first note finishes its allocation before the silent quarter starts.
BWait through the silent placeOpen the listening note1/2B4 · cycle 1slot 1/41/3B4 · cycle 1slot 1/3
A schedules no note from 1/4 to 1/2. Its B starts halfway through the cycle. B has no rest and its B note arrives at 1/3 instead. Counting audible notes alone would miss this difference.
At 30 cycles/min, A has an allocated silent quarter from 0.500 to 1.000 seconds. Our short envelopes add small gaps elsewhere too; only this quarter is an explicit rest in the writing.
AA different arrival, same boundaryOpen the listening note3/4A4 · cycle 1slot 1/42/3A4 · cycle 1slot 1/3
The final A starts at 3/4 with the rest and 2/3 without it. Both versions return to E at the next cycle boundary. A rest affects where events go, not the number of seconds in the global cycle.
Try replacing a note with ~ when you want to preserve the other onsets. Deleting the note instead changes how many outside places share the cycle.
Each coloured line is one full cycle; the filled segment is this note’s allocation. Compare A and B on the same row. Seconds in the listening notes assume 30 cycles/min; half speed doubles them.
Timing, sound & using these phrases
At 30 cycles per minute, one cycle is 60 ÷ 30 = 2 seconds. An onset of 1/3 is two thirds of a second into that cycle. For cycle 2, add another two seconds. These examples stop after two cycles; the real Strudel patterns continue.
CycleEar synthesizes original sine tones after your click. They fade before their allocated slot ends. Allocations are not waveform measurements: instruments and envelopes can sustain or fade differently. The snippets use Strudel’s own sine instrument, so their envelope can sound different.
Open Strudel, paste one complete downloaded phrase and press Ctrl+Enter. Use Ctrl+. to stop. The file sets 30 cycles/min and plays a single original note pattern; it has no samples to download.
Rule reference: Strudel’s original documentation. Sources, privacy and sharing your own listening page.