RE: [microsound] microsound and mathematics

[jhno <ear@xxxxxxxxxx>]

>That's exactly what I've been thinking about. The problem is that music is
>pretty much completely subjective. How do you write an algorithm which can
>tell if something sounds good or not ?

or detects the beat, or identifies an instrument... beyond your eardrum you
have the product of (n)million years of evolution interpreting vibrations
in ways we don't understand, much less have the ability to emulate.

one brain represents a collective of individuals more numerous than humans
on the earth.

>2. Give it a library of music as a reference. Successful reproduction is
>based on the similarity between the generated music and the library.

certainly... although i would guess that this approach has a much better
chance at succeeding with raw dsp sound design as opposed to musical
structure. the analysis problem remains. witness comparisonics.com, a
company ostensibly basing its business on sound-comparing technology.
which, on the surface, does not seem to work very well.

take an fft, look for periodicities in the amplitude and spectral shape,
the more complex and "finely discerning" the algorithm, the more
interesting the results will be. one goal is to build an analysis that
excludes convergence behavior by its nature.

half the fun with ga systems is finding two interesting offspring and
morphing the values between them...

>self generating visual material?

http://draves.org
(i know i posted this the other day, but i haven't seen anything better...!)

>made me wonder what the relavence of
>performance is with this kind of music?

when i play a powerbook set, my attention is entirely focused on the piece
- much more than it is when i used to dj; a live improviser has the
opportunity to match the space and the mood of the moment to a much finer
degree than recordings ever could. admittedly my sets are usually a little
busier than microsound fare, but not always.

just sour grapes, cas i am still teaching the computer to do what i do. i
reckon i will not get to the wander-around-the-room point for another two
years...

jhno