Generative Music
Generative music is a term coined to describe music where a key element of the composition incorporates a degree of unpredictability. This type of music includes a of methods and implementations, from using multiple CD players set to shuffle/random, to more sophisticated approaches such as SSEYO’s KOAN composition software or Cycling 74’s MAX/MSP graphical programming environment.
Generative music tends to be an unknown genre at the moment, with a few notable exceptions such as Brian Eno’s “Generative Music 1″ (available for Windows), the Touch release “Wrong” by Locust (which uses two CDs played on two CD players.), amongst others.
My generative songs aren’t particularly technically savvy, but I’m very satisfied with the results. The method I use is an adaptation of Eno’s method for a song from his CD “Music for Airports”. In the future, I would like to do a Flash version where you would select a melody, and backing tracks to be combined on the fly, but that’s going to require me to read the actionscript books piling up on my desk.
I embed six looping Quicktime audio tracks of different lengths in a small browser window. As each track downloads, it begins playing (and looping), until all tracks are playing simultaneously. Since each track has a different amount of sound/silence on it, and they’re edited to different lengths, they overlap in random ways to create gently shifting soundscapes. Since the tracks are simply Quicktime movies, users can stop and start individual tracks, as well as adjust volume, or move a track’s playback head. With the recent site switch, I haven’t gotten the songs up yet – but will soon. Honest.
I’m considering working up a gadget from 6 iPod shuffles and a 6-channel mixer. Like a big “Buddha Machine” from FM3 that you could load your own loops into via USB 2.0.