Orchestra Victoria and The Wedge present
Sale I What Noise Do Numbers Make?
Artwork by Sophie Beer
Hidden inside the melodies we love and the instruments we play… are numbers.
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Sale / Wayput
Wednesday 11 June 2025, 1.00pm
John Leslie Theatre, The Wedge
100 Foster Street
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Duration
Approximately 60 minutes (no interval)
Q&A after performance -
Ticket Price Range
Free - School bookings only
It might sound crazy, but without maths, music as we know it just wouldn’t be possible! The beauty and emotion that music can make us feel, the catchiness of a tune, the way a famous symphony unfolds over time, all of the things that makes music ‘music’… are numbers making noise.
This engaging and innovative program explores the fascinating ways maths helps create the music we love. You and your students will join Orchestra Victoria in a vibrant, educational concert that unpacks the secret musical life of numbers, including an opportunity for your students to interactively create a brand-new piece of music for the orchestra, guided by the beauty and elegance of maths.
‘What Noise Do Numbers Make’ will captivate your entire classroom - from reluctant mathematicians and musicians, to emerging Mozarts and Mersennes - and offer you new ways to open the imaginations and minds of your students to the possibilities of music and mathematics.
After the show, dive into a kit of compelling lessons and practical activities that are mapped closely to the Victorian Curriculum, with separate, tailored, resources provided for Maths and Music classrooms, specifically designed to explore the incredible and unexpected ways music and maths overlap.
This program was developed in a studio managed by the City of Melbourne’s Meat Market tenancy program.
School Excursions
To make a school booking to attend, please complete the School Booking Form on The Wedge website.
Cast & Creatives
Conductor Ingrid Martin
Concept, Program and New Commission by Tim Hansen
Orchestra Victoria
Curriculum Details
Levels 5 & 6
Areas of investigation and learning will include how fractions and decimals relate to time signatures, rhythmic subdivision and tempo, as well as experimenting with polyrhythms and accents. Students will also explore how mathematical patterns can be used to create melodies, and the similarities between numerical and musical palindromes.
Levels 7 & 8
Examples of areas for exploration will include patterns and sequences, such as the Fibonacci sequence, and how these influence form and structure in music; the mathematical relationships between pitch, and how these relationships create consonance and dissonance in harmony; and experiment with inversion, retrograde, and transposition in composition and their parallels in geometry.
Levels 9 & 10
Some areas of focus will involve investigating tuning systems like equal temperament and just intonation, exploring their mathematical foundations. Students will also experiment with the golden mean as both a mathematical concept and a basis for aesthetically balanced composition, as well as the links between probability and aleatoric (chance) music.
Production Partners
This program is supported by the Touring Victoria program through Creative Victoria
