4 ms·

I have, in the entire time (20+ years) I’ve produced music, been against randomness. I could write an article or maybe a short book on the topic, but basically

• atoav 5y ago
  I am a musician myself (both modular synthesis and stringed instruments in improvisational contexts) and while I agree with your idea (complexity being more interesting than randomness) isn't the issue here also that randomness in the musical concept is a lot about perceived randomness? True randomness is not too exiting most of the time (except maybe in works simlar to those John Cage made, where the concept itself is part of the work). However a "random" change can be exciting, it can be exciting when you tell humans to act random, or when you bring chance into complex systems. E.g. least common multiple between two numbers but one is a choice between a set of three.
• nextaccountic 5y ago
  But you can generate complexity out of randomness. Things like L-systems can generate self-similarity and other kinds of complexity out of a random seed.
  • bit-101 5y ago
    In that case I'd say that although the seed is random, the system is anything but random. This also goes for various forms of "chaos games". You make random choices on each turn, but those choices are within a framework of possible choices that winds up producing surprising order.