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HAMILTON: TCA students become PI-ed pipers

Pi, commonly referred to as 3.14 with a never-ending set of numbers, is the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter, was celebrated March 14 in schools all around the world, including TCA, where teach

HAMILTON — Students in Trenton Catholic Academy’s freshmen honors algebra class learned how to use the mathematical constant of Pi to write original music, even if they had no previous experience playing the piano.
   Pi, commonly referred to as 3.14 with a never-ending set of numbers, is the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter, 14, was celebrated March 14 in schools all around the world, including TCA, where teachers working in a partnered environment wanted to show some of the commonalties between math and music.
   Music teacher Susan King taught some basics, including note length, a scale and how to arrange music into 12 bars of four beats each. Students drew numbers zero through nine on a keyboard.
   ”We then told them to use the first 15 digits of Pi and to correspond them with the numbers they had drawn,” said TCA math teacher Michael Radaszkiewicz.
   ”The idea was to teach them more everyday applications between the two disciplines.”
   ”The students quickly picked up the process and were eager to play their compositions,” said Ms. King. “They learned how to manipulate the notes and their duration to get the sound how they wanted. The results were surprisingly musical. One student even played his violin to accompany a partner on their new song.”