source file: mills2.txt Date: Mon, 25 Nov 1996 10:29:47 -0800 Subject: Re: Lost post from Brian McLaren From: bil@ccrma.Stanford.EDU (Bill Schottstaedt) I started trying to respond to Brian's condemnation of algorithmic composition, but the more I type, the more I delete. I don't think there's any great need to pounce on composers for using words in a general way -- why not try to understand what problems they're dealing with, rather than shouting about Science? For example, in my own case, I got interested in algorithmic composition because it gave me a way to break out of a personal rut -- a freer form of improvisation if you will, and it was for ten years a time of complete exhileration. I would run 50 or 100 algorithmic "takes" (mostly just tweaking random number seeds), extract the stuff that caught my ear, and goof around with that until a finished piece of music emerged. 99% of the "work" was done by the computer. I wrote the algorithms and chose the output I liked, so I call myself the composer. The other source of ideas was a similar kind of goofing around with sounds (synthesized or recorded); in either case, there was a conscious effort to make mistakes -- that is, the most fruitful compositional paths, in my case, were opened up when I just blindly charged into something without having any idea what I was doing. After the fact, I could make a sensible narrative to explain why that path was a World-Historical Necessity. So, I think Brian's attacks are counter-productive, assuming any composer is listening -- my advice is, pay no attention to the experts! Who cares what "experimental" means, or whether the means were "valid" or whether an unaided human could have done the same thing given 10 lifetimes? In composition, it's the result that count. Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Mon, 25 Nov 1996 20:42 +0100 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA07329; Mon, 25 Nov 1996 20:43:55 +0100 Received: from eartha.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA07401 Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) for id LAA07698; Mon, 25 Nov 1996 11:43:47 -0800 Date: Mon, 25 Nov 1996 11:43:47 -0800 Message-Id: <3299F63B.66F4@media.mit.edu> Errors-To: madole@ella.mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu