2026-06-08
yesterday, i was surprised to find a link to this online project for drum synthesis, eigendrum. it was surprising because it was recommended at the bottom of a Morning Brew newsletter, which is mainly focused on business pop culture, so usually it's just random product placement ads lol. their bullet point for eigendrum said
- Draw any shape, and hear what it would sound like as a drum.
their description is accurate, because apparently the synthesis is a working representation of solving for a dirichlet eigenvalue??? Look, I know synths are really just computers rendering complex maths as an auditory output, but it's still boggling to read about the machinations of a novel equation for this stuff.
Pitch is size and tension; fade is material and air. Neither is in the outline, so both are yours. Every overtone ratio is computed and fixed.
Basel's snippet explaining parameters
The coolest part about this is learning that the overtones of a drum with different shapes can be the exact same! Basel Ashraf (eigendrum's author) references a 1966 paper, Can one hear the shape of a drum?, in which they realized: NO, you can't. and that's because all the complicated maths of a drumhead beating are happening in the AREA of it's surface. so overtones are dependent on surface area, and the shape of a drum's outline actually isn't much of a factor.
it might seem trivial, but in reality it's yet another reminder that music is a method for us to experience fundamental principles of the universe in a deeply human way. nature expressing itself through our nature. vice versa.
the funniest part is that all this amounts to is Scientific Proof that decent drum-heads are more important than shells LOL