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I gave it a go and listened to a bunch of these wolframtunes....all of which sounded very much like random walking melodies over rhythm tracks someone probably

by Frondo 7y ago

I gave it a go and listened to a bunch of these wolframtunes....all of which sounded very much like random walking melodies over rhythm tracks someone probably programmed, or specified with enough constraints that they sounded like a regular 4/4 rhythm. (I didn't fuck with the controls too much.) I can accept your statement that "it's definitely saying something," with the caveat that all that random walking melodies are saying is: "I programmed a computer to generate a random melody." The range of expression is limited when you're making a computer work on random input; it's pretty much limited to "this is a demonstration of the algorithm I programmed," kind of a far cry from how most music is written and received. Synth jams are something else, they're driven by people through and through.

munificent 7y ago
> I gave it a go and listened to a bunch of these wolframtunes Sure, but that just says that this particular combination of human and machine isn't very good. Lots of people play guitar poorly. That doesn't imply that guitars are bad instruments. > it's pretty much limited to "this is a demonstration of the algorithm I programmed," kind of a far cry from how most music is written and received. If I write an "algorithm" that simply plays back a hard-coded series of notes and timing that I selected, that's, I assume you would agree, a fully artistic expression. After all, that's how most working keyboard musicians work today. They play and record the MIDI notes. Now maybe I play a few melodies and write a program that just randomly selects between them. That's still 90% human-authored "art" plus a little random chance. Maybe the melodies get shorter and the random choices get larger. There is a continuum here between "human makes all decisions" and "human makes no decisions" and I think you'd have a really hard time putting a finger on it saying "everything below here is just algorithmic demonstrations". Even acoustic instruments and our physical bodies have some stochastic processes. A tambourine player isn't controlling the hit timing of each individual cymbal on it. That doesn't lessen it. Maximum artistic value doesn't necessarily mean "maximum human intent". See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indeterminacy_(music) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indeterminacy_(music) > they're driven by people through and through. I think you might be surprised. Many synths and drum machines have randomness as an input and can use it to vary the timbre of sounds, velocity, whether or not to play individual drum hits, etc. For example, the Digitone lets you assign probabilities to individual notes and will roll the dice each time to decide whether or not to play it. Even hand-authored LFOs with slow rates interact in ways the author is unlikely to be choosing deliberately. It's not like musicians are calculating the least common multiple of their various LFO frequencies to determine when the pattern repeats. They just tweak a few knobs and let them "randomly" wander in and out of phase with each other.

by Frondo 7y ago

munificent 7y ago

> I gave it a go and listened to a bunch of these wolframtunes Sure, but that just says that this particular combination of human and machine isn't very good. Lots of people play guitar poorly. That doesn't imply that guitars are bad instruments. > it's pretty much limited to "this is a demonstration of the algorithm I programmed," kind of a far cry from how most music is written and received. If I write an "algorithm" that simply plays back a hard-coded series of notes and timing that I selected, that's, I assume you would agree, a fully artistic expression. After all, that's how most working keyboard musicians work today. They play and record the MIDI notes. Now maybe I play a few melodies and write a program that just randomly selects between them. That's still 90% human-authored "art" plus a little random chance. Maybe the melodies get shorter and the random choices get larger. There is a continuum here between "human makes all decisions" and "human makes no decisions" and I think you'd have a really hard time putting a finger on it saying "everything below here is just algorithmic demonstrations". Even acoustic instruments and our physical bodies have some stochastic processes. A tambourine player isn't controlling the hit timing of each individual cymbal on it. That doesn't lessen it. Maximum artistic value doesn't necessarily mean "maximum human intent". See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indeterminacy_(music) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indeterminacy_(music) > they're driven by people through and through. I think you might be surprised. Many synths and drum machines have randomness as an input and can use it to vary the timbre of sounds, velocity, whether or not to play individual drum hits, etc. For example, the Digitone lets you assign probabilities to individual notes and will roll the dice each time to decide whether or not to play it. Even hand-authored LFOs with slow rates interact in ways the author is unlikely to be choosing deliberately. It's not like musicians are calculating the least common multiple of their various LFO frequencies to determine when the pattern repeats. They just tweak a few knobs and let them "randomly" wander in and out of phase with each other.