From: James Rogers (jamesr@best.com)
Date: Mon Dec 27 1999 - 09:20:20 MST
On Mon, 27 Dec 1999, Replicant00@aol.com wrote:
>
> I would say that's a stretch. Algorithms implies an extremely boring
> composer.
> I believe the boredom factor is key. Many "art forms" use systems like this.
> Architecture (Richard Meier) , Music (especially Philip Glass) and abstract
> art (Op-art).
All composers use algorithms, whether they are aware of them or not. This
is because our brains are pretty much only receptive to algorithmic sound.
If this was not the case, people would find white noise to be "interesting"
music, but in fact most people prefer only modest amounts of entropy in
their music. From an information theoretic standpoint, the fact that
computers can decompose musical styles so easily and so well is a rather
obvious indication that music is not only algorithmic, but that the
fundamental algorithms aren't particularly complex.
Algorithms do not imply an extremely boring composer. The *complexity* of
the algorithms used (and how different algorithms are used together) would
be a much better guage of interestingness.
> The systems create large compositions that are meandering and boring,
> spiked with intersections where interesting things *sometimes*
> happen. Normal music composition doesn't often take this approach.
Actually, you've defined all types of music as far as I am concerned.
Even works by the great masters have areas that are weak at best. You
don't need a computer to generate boring music. But then again, good
music is in the ear of the beholder.
> The "algorithms" - if they happen at all - are accidental occurrences, laws, yes, but based on
> the musician or artist's learning experience, and have evolved out of the
> natural selection of time, and the emotional respose evoked in the duration of the sound...
> The difference between the system bases and the natural ones is fundamental.
> Most people prefer to listen to music that is written for an emotional
> response. The difference is in intent.
What a wonderful introduction to one of my favorite rants (a favorite
because I can find so many people that want to argue this point, even in
the most rational audiences).
Emotional content in music is *highly* algorithmic, and perishingly simple
at that. Every film score composer knows this. In the last ten years or
so, quite a bit of research has been done on psychoacoustics and related
areas. Emotional response to music is subconscious and generally quite
uniform across the population. What research has shown, and what most
sound designers already knew, is that human emotional responses are
triggered by simple audio cues, some of which cannot be consciously heard
by most people. Harmonic content and the modulation of frequency,
amplitude, and time domain characteristics can generate a broad range of
emotional responses in humans. While traditional acoustic instruments
offer more limited control in these departments, sound synthesis engines
allow these parameters to be controlled with a high degree of precision.
Movie sound effects exploit these manipulations to the maximum extent
possible expressly for the purpose of creating the desired response.
Think of the theme for "X-files"; that stark soundtrack is an excellent
example of music specifically designed to create a targeted emotional
response, and it does so using well-known emotional cue algorithms.
I do a lot of my own sound design, and my design parameters are pretty
much 1) the type of sound I want to create, and 2) the "feel" I want
to project (basically the emotional content). Yes, I have "intent" to
project emotional content, but it is programmed using simple algorithms
I learned years ago, not through some mysterious black art accessible only
to humans. In fact, you could say that my intent is far more calculated
than those musicians who merely stumble across the feel they are looking
for by accident. It would be a trivial exercise to write a computer
program that could create an emotional feel to music as well.
Therefore, a musician is essentially someone who has evolved a set of
algorithms that generate the necessary cues to evoke an emotional response
in their audience. Incidentally, audio cue manipulation doesn't work that
well on people who are aware that they are being intentionally
manipulated, but when it comes to music, most people are willing
participants so it works anyway. In movies it works great because people
aren't really paying attention.
-James Rogers
jamesr@best.com
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