source file: mills2.txt Date: Wed, 4 Dec 1996 13:55:50 -0800 Subject: computer composition From: James Kukula McLaren's discussion of ways that a computer can be used to compose music brings out many useful distinctions. He acknowledges the blurriness of the distinctions as well. There are yet other dimensions to the question that may be useful to expose. Many algorithms that generate complex data, e.g. a musical composition, have many "knobs" that can be adjusted. If the user is actually the programmer, then the whole program can be adjusted. The final product is generally the result of many loops through the process - generated a trial output, see how it is unsatisfactory, adjust knobs/program, try again. It's not easy to say what fraction of the result is due to human effort and what fraction due to computer effort. Also: some parameter settings might be quite simple, such as a probability threshold. But other parameters might be more complex, for example a program might use a library of simple melodic figures to build up more complex melodies. When a program gets such musical input from the user, it isn't easy to assign a proportion of effort. In the electronic design business these issues also come up. There's no way to design a leading-edge microprocessor chip without an awful lot of help from computers. But there's an awful lot of human effort too. Just how best to take advantage of the different abilities of humans and computers... I don't think there's an easy answer, but a lot of the progress in the electronics industry comes from finding new and better answers. Certainly music making is one of the oldest and richest fields of human/machine co-creation. Certainly the electronics revolution has already had vast impact on music. How profoundly musical this impact has been, versus simply lining the pockets of producers of hit recordings, far be it from me to judge. I doubt though that the potential has been fully explored. On another subject: popular non-12TET music. Isn't it true that music from non-European cultures use very different scales? I've heard that, for example, Indian ragas, sitar music, etc. use scales very different than 12TET. Wouldn't these qualify as examples of non-12TET with substantial popularity, emotional impact, etc.? Our European culture, now reinforced by mass media and that same electronic revolution that pays my rent, seems to do a good job of keeping expression channelled in some pretty narrow ruts. The possible forms of human expression, lifestyles, etc. are quite vast, but if you're outside the European mainstream, it seems to be harder and harder to survive. I'm not sure the tuning business is much different in this regard than, say, languages like English vs. Spanish. I hear the Supreme Court is looking into that matter right about now. Personally I think we'd be wise to keep working to resist the narrow social channelling forces. The more kinds of music the better! Jim Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Thu, 5 Dec 1996 23:16 +0100 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA22113; Thu, 5 Dec 1996 17:37:58 +0100 Received: from eartha.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA22194 Received: from by eartha.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) for id IAA22891; Thu, 5 Dec 1996 08:37:55 -0800 Date: Thu, 5 Dec 1996 08:37:55 -0800 Message-Id: Errors-To: madole@ella.mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@eartha.mills.edu