In the piece TRAPPIST-1, the third scene, “Discovery”, is structured following the timeline of the discovery of the planetary system. I used the number of days between different events to trigger musical elements. This scene has two main sections. The first section engages with the discovery of the first five planets of the system (C, G, E, F, and B). New pitch material is played in the electronics part and by the flautist[29] at the times corresponding to the discoveries of new planets. The second section starts at the moment corresponding to the detection of a triple transit of planets C, E, and F. In this moment, only the pitches linked to these three planets continue being played. This section is formed by a trio between the flautist and two pre-recorded flute melodic lines generated with melodic material related to the triple transit. The scene finishes at the moment that corresponds in the timeline with the acceptance by the scientific magazine Nature of an article about the TRAPPIST-1 system. In that moment, we trigger a recording of a public speech given at a NASA conference. That marks the start of Scene 4, “Announcement”.

Days between events as structure

Table 6

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Example #7 

Use of the timeline of the discovery of planets as structure to determine the addition of new pitch material in relation to the first detection of each planet of the TRAPPIST-1 system.

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