[eu-gene] Psst...Wanna Buy an Algorithm? (Working Title)

[nick collins]

> Sure it's great to make software to make music, but to me the idea of
> constantly changing generative music is flawed.

Excuse the academic style in the below, I can't help myself these 
days...

Except for aberrant fixed recordings, a 20th century hang-up perhaps, 
all music changes at least subtly between performances. There might be 
systematic expressive deviations associated with musical structure from 
performers interpreting a score (Clarke 88), there might be greater 
shifts of material within idiomatic improvisation (and improvisation is 
cross-culturally ubiquitous), or the wholescale production of form from 
the interaction of musicians in free improvisation.

One of the things that originally appealed to me about algorithmic 
music was the capacity to provide refreshing stimulus, within a given 
style. This chimes well with the reasons performers improvise to keep 
renewing their idiom (Bailey 1980). But also, subtle, controlled 
variation is useful to avoid the fixed repetitions that otherwise lose 
their vitality and promote switched off listening states. 
(Interestingly, performers often dislike recordings because they are 
forced to settle on one eternal immutable performance, and the 
associated stress can lead to extensive dishonest multiple takes, 
post-production editing etc- its all very career oriented in a music 
industry set up around the fixed product).

I have also argued before though that coarse 'kind of' relations are 
enough for some listeners to judge music, and thus that it is 
incredibly hard to build algorithmic works that really do shift their 
idiom sufficiently between runs to keep surprising you. But I think I'd 
still say there is a lot of healthy mileage in algorithmic music (even 
without any external interaction) that I prefer to recorded works, they 
are like 'live recordings', if only that term wasn't already 
appropriated...

N


Eric F. Clarke. (1988) Generative principles in music performance. 
Generative Processes in Music: The Psychology of Performance, 
Improvisation and Composition, pages 1–26. John A. Sloboda(ed), Oxford 
University Press, Oxford

Derek Bailey. (1980) Improvisation: its nature and practise in music. 
Moorland publishing Co Ltd, Ashbourne, Derbyshire, England, 1980.