3 ms·

The grandparent might be specifically talking about the sound clips from the article. They don't sound melodic, let alone musical (at least to my human ears).

• msutherl 11y ago
  I believe it's more of a semantic thing. A melody is inherently non-random. "Random melody" is nearly oxymoronic.
  • nitrogen 11y ago
    I think it's fair to call a non-repeating sequence of randomly selected, sufficiently tonal notes, on a familiar scale, in the right frequency range, a melody. So I don't think it's fair to say a melody is inherently non-random. I'd say that there only needs to be a sequence of sounds identifiable as individual notes, with a sufficiently dominant pitch as to sound tonal.
    • gohrt 11y ago
      In other words, random within a non-random subspace of the universe of possibilities. Like hitting random notes on a piano, without having a piano to start with.
    • msutherl 11y ago
      As someone who has composed aleatoric music and had many discussions with people who have devoted their lives to generative music, I have to say it's debatable whether what you described can strictly be called a "melody" unless you take the broadest dictionary definition ('a pleasing sequence of notes'), though I do think you can call it "melodic" as in 'melody-ish'. In other words, I think there's an essential difference between melody as conceived prior to the advent of generative music, which implies a decision by the composer that 'this is the melody', and a 'random melody' where that decision is made in a different manner, i.e. "whatever this process produces is 'the melody'". In the case of a randomly generated score, it gets a bit confusing because it's not clear if the composer used a generative process to determine 'the melody' or if it can meaningfully be called 'random'. Ultimately we just don't have words for such things. Perhaps conveniently, generative music still plays a very minor role in music culture outside of i.e. some of Brian Eno's recent work and the enduring influence of John Cage.
      • pluma 11y ago
        Aren't you then saying that melody-ness is being conferred by the composer? That would make it extremely difficult to confirm that something is a melody or not by observation alone (and thus likely impossible when determining whether other apes can come up with melodies). That said, I think the article is not using "random" in the literal sense but in the sense of "arbitrary", as in "novel" (rather than being simply a reiteration of a previously observed tune).