Abstract
We turn to artificially produced computer music that is hardly distinguishable from music performed by professionals. Music composition technology routinely creates Chopin-like mazurkas and Bach-like concertos, which are then played through music synthesizers or assembled orchestras. Many of the major contemporary music/programmers are covered as is their works. But, the surprise element we expect from a piece of creative music, at least in the early days of synthesized music, appears missing. Some of this shortcoming has been overcome through the selection of unsystematic processes that choose the parameters of a musical composition, such as tempo, beat, note selection, and chord change.
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Notes
- 1.
Edwin Votey constructed a piano-player system during the spring and summer of 1895.
- 2.
For an example of a jazz improvisation, see, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cbb08ifTzUk.
- 3.
To listen to Illiac Suite for Strings, see, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0njBFLQSk8.
- 4.
To listen to Metastasis by Xenakis, see, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZazYFchLRI.
- 5.
Brian Eno: Reflection, running on an Apple TV (4th Generation). App also runs on iPhone and iPad. To hear this type of composition, see, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dwo-tvmEKhk.
- 6.
Music for Airports is the sixth studio album by Eno, released in 1978. The album consists of four compositions created by layering tape loops of differing lengths. It was the first of four albums released in Eno’s “Ambient” series, a term coined to differentiate his experimental and minimalistic compositions from canned music, such a Muzak, or elevator music. For the full album of Music for Airports, see, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNwYtllyt3Q.
- 7.
David Cope, a composer and professor at UC Santa Cruz, wrote Emmy, a program that deconstructs the works of composers, finding patterns within the voice leading of their compositions, and then creates new compositions based on the patterns it finds. To listen to a podcast demonstrating the process and the music see, https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/91515-musical-dna.
- 8.
Stochastic music is where some element of the composition is left to chance.
- 9.
To listen to one of Emmy’s composition, see, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kuY3BrmTfQ.
- 10.
Emmy runs 20,000 lines of LISP, on an Apple Macintosh.
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Carvalko Jr., J.R. (2020). The Intricacies of Mastery. In: Conserving Humanity at the Dawn of Posthuman Technology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26407-9_38
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-26407-9_38
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