Music Theory & DNA
Discover how musical scales feel, sound, and connect to the building blocks of life. Pick an instrument, hit Play, and watch the notes move.
DNA Nucleotides
The four letters of the genetic code — and their musical equivalents
A purine base — one of the larger nucleotides. Carries energy as ATP. Always bonds with Thymine using 2 hydrogen bonds.
A pyrimidine — one of the smaller nucleotides. Bonds with Guanine through 3 hydrogen bonds, making it the stronger pairing.
A pyrimidine found only in DNA, not RNA. Pairs with Adenine via 2 hydrogen bonds. Replaced by Uracil when DNA is transcribed into RNA.
A purine like Adenine. Its 3-bond pairing with Cytosine makes C-G regions harder to unzip — critical for DNA stability.
🧬 Anatomy of DNA — from letter to life
The single letter of the genetic alphabet. Each has a sugar, phosphate, and one of 4 bases (A, C, T, G). Chain billions together and you have DNA.
A always bonds with T. C always bonds with G — no exceptions. These form the rungs of the DNA ladder and allow perfect copying every time a cell divides.
Two strands twisting like a spiral staircase. Discovered in 1953 — one of the greatest scientific moments in history.
A stretch of base pairs encoding one protein. Humans have ~20,000 genes — but they make up only 2% of our DNA. The rest is still being studied.
Each nucleotide maps to a musical note. Conserved regions across species play similar passages. Mutations sound different. Evolution becomes audible.
🎹 DNA → Musical Note Mapping
| Base | Full Name | Musical Note | Pairs With |
|---|---|---|---|
|
A
|
Adenine | Do (C) | T |
|
C
|
Cytosine | Mi (E) | G |
|
T
|
Thymine | Sol (G) | A |
|
G
|
Guanine | La (A) | C |
The Phylogenetic Tree
The family tree of all life — and why it sounds the way it does
Humans and chimps share ~98.7% of DNA — in Tree Harmony their music sounds nearly identical. Zebrafish share ~70% — same melody structure, many different notes.
Branch Length = Time
Longer branches = more evolutionary time = more mutations accumulated. More mutations = more musical differences between species.
Conserved Regions
Some DNA sequences are identical across thousands of species — too vital to change. In Tree Harmony, these sections sound the same in every species' song.
Hearing Evolution
A Multiple Sequence Alignment (MSA) lines up DNA column by column. Tree Harmony turns each column into a chord — evolution you can literally hear.
Musical Scales
Choose your instrument → Press Play → Watch the scale animate
The most natural scale in music — pure, resolved, and uplifting. Every white key on the piano in order. When something sounds cheerful, this is usually why.
Slightly warmer than C Major with one sharp (F#). Popular in folk, country, and pop — it has an open, confident feel that sits comfortably in the human voice range.
One flat (Bb) gives F Major a softer, more relaxed brightness. Often used for pastoral, peaceful, and lullaby-like music. Think gentle and reassuring.
The most natural minor scale — same notes as C Major but starting on A. That shift changes everything. It sounds melancholic and deeply emotional, used in countless moving songs.
Called the saddest of all keys by Mozart himself. D Minor has a deeper, more serious darkness than A Minor — used in requiems, dramatic film scores, and intense classical pieces.
Natural on the guitar — open strings ring out in E Minor effortlessly. It has a lonely, haunting quality used everywhere from rock ballads to Spanish guitar.
Just 5 notes — found in music from every culture on Earth. Remove the two tension notes from Major and you get pure, effortless melody. You literally cannot play a wrong note.
The backbone of blues, rock, and soul. Just 5 notes that feel impossibly emotional and expressive. Every guitar solo you've ever loved is probably in this scale.
Developers
The team behind Tree Harmony
