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> Because people don't want their music that way. We made the classic mistake of thinking we knew what people wanted because _we_ thought it was cool This is a

by bambax 5y ago

> Because people don't want their music that way. We made the classic mistake of thinking we knew what people wanted because _we_ thought it was cool This is a really great discussion. Can you elaborate a little about what you thought the public wanted, and what you found they actually want? (I make some stochastic / algorithic music myself and am very interested in this.)

nonrandomstring 5y ago
> Can you elaborate a little about what you thought the public wanted, and what you found they actually want? Sure I'll give it a shot, its over a decade ago now and I'm getting old at this. It was circa 2010 IIRC, and we had a a bunch of trailblazers, one Last.fm founder, a Second Life veteran, a top girl from Eve Online, me (procedural audio), and a vision for the delivery of "interactive" pop music - at the point of delivery, using loads of synthesis, but crucially using all the sensors to shape the music. So each "Reactive music" (coined by Michael Breidenbruecker) piece basically used the gyro, temperature, time of day, microphone, light levels and all that jazz... to create parameters for the music. We pioneered all kinds of stuff, like music that adapts to your running speed, driving, location (through GPS or other context awareness), sounds in the environment etcetera. I put a lot into the DSP and philosophy of "deferred form" as an artistic concept. What we thought people wanted was basically "co-creation". We moved legal mountains over licensing stems, derivative works, sharing of UGC by audiences... and working with artists/producers to "capture" their workflow, reduce it to a rule set and stuff it into a smartphone (which they really didn't like for the same good reasons Aboriginal Aussies have around photography). <Skip really complex psychological and philosophical stuff about identity, identification, art, attribution and social participation> What people _actually_ want is "definitive form" (deferred form only works in dietetic contexts like video games =- thus procedural audio is a thing, whereas reactive music is not - although Kent Jolly and the Spore guys almost proved that wrong, and games still seems the natural home of algorithmic music). Put it this way... everyone likes the idea of a "write your own story" game - games have infinite outcomes depending on what the user (player) does. Deferred form works there. But you can't make that work with film. I don't want a Star Wars where each time I watch it I get surprised: maybe Darth Vader and Luke _do_ rule galaxy as father and son, or Luke does a paternity test and it turns out "You're NOT my father!". I want a Star Wars where everything in the universe is as I remember and like it, so I can watch it over and get satisfaction. I want my psychological "noo-noo" to play with. That's how people listen to music, and ultimately it's what they want - even if they say they want interactive smartphone music. This is why market research is a waste of money unless you grok the culture. You can ask them. You can build it. And they still don't come. (BTW, I think this may be first and only post-mortem of RJDJ)
- bambax 5y ago
  Ah thank you, that's really helpful. Listeners want definitive form most of the time, but what about "music for airports" or for elevators, etc. where a piece should be non-repetitive and yet last for as long as possible? And what about creators / composers? Did they show any interest at the time?
  - nonrandomstring 5y ago
    > Listeners want definitive form most of the time, but what about "music for airports" or for elevators, Sure that's a thing. Waaay back I built a system to go in Harrods department store and in other supermarkets, basically SBCs of similar grunt to Raspberry Pi's now, running Csound. I made generative scores to create sound effects and ambient music all day long. That company, The Sound Agency, is still going AFAIK. > And what about creators / composers? Did they show any interest at the time? Well of course. But here's where I have to bite my lip, because to be honest they don't always.. well artists. Eno obviously gets it. Guy coined the "Generative music" thing in so many ways... but Eno actually releases recordings. He selects the good stuff and puts it out as definitive form. I've always argued that's a different art form from what we were doing in the Shoreditch arts hacker scene back in 2005-2012. We were releasing stuff as code, so songs and albums in Supercollider or Pure Data - very much inspired by the German demo scene where it was common to release music as a .exe and each time you run it you get something a little different.

by bambax 5y ago

nonrandomstring 5y ago

> Can you elaborate a little about what you thought the public wanted, and what you found they actually want? Sure I'll give it a shot, its over a decade ago now and I'm getting old at this. It was circa 2010 IIRC, and we had a a bunch of trailblazers, one Last.fm founder, a Second Life veteran, a top girl from Eve Online, me (procedural audio), and a vision for the delivery of "interactive" pop music - at the point of delivery, using loads of synthesis, but crucially using all the sensors to shape the music. So each "Reactive music" (coined by Michael Breidenbruecker) piece basically used the gyro, temperature, time of day, microphone, light levels and all that jazz... to create parameters for the music. We pioneered all kinds of stuff, like music that adapts to your running speed, driving, location (through GPS or other context awareness), sounds in the environment etcetera. I put a lot into the DSP and philosophy of "deferred form" as an artistic concept. What we thought people wanted was basically "co-creation". We moved legal mountains over licensing stems, derivative works, sharing of UGC by audiences... and working with artists/producers to "capture" their workflow, reduce it to a rule set and stuff it into a smartphone (which they really didn't like for the same good reasons Aboriginal Aussies have around photography). <Skip really complex psychological and philosophical stuff about identity, identification, art, attribution and social participation> What people _actually_ want is "definitive form" (deferred form only works in dietetic contexts like video games =- thus procedural audio is a thing, whereas reactive music is not - although Kent Jolly and the Spore guys almost proved that wrong, and games still seems the natural home of algorithmic music). Put it this way... everyone likes the idea of a "write your own story" game - games have infinite outcomes depending on what the user (player) does. Deferred form works there. But you can't make that work with film. I don't want a Star Wars where each time I watch it I get surprised: maybe Darth Vader and Luke _do_ rule galaxy as father and son, or Luke does a paternity test and it turns out "You're NOT my father!". I want a Star Wars where everything in the universe is as I remember and like it, so I can watch it over and get satisfaction. I want my psychological "noo-noo" to play with. That's how people listen to music, and ultimately it's what they want - even if they say they want interactive smartphone music. This is why market research is a waste of money unless you grok the culture. You can ask them. You can build it. And they still don't come. (BTW, I think this may be first and only post-mortem of RJDJ)

bambax 5y ago
Ah thank you, that's really helpful. Listeners want definitive form most of the time, but what about "music for airports" or for elevators, etc. where a piece should be non-repetitive and yet last for as long as possible? And what about creators / composers? Did they show any interest at the time?
- nonrandomstring 5y ago
  > Listeners want definitive form most of the time, but what about "music for airports" or for elevators, Sure that's a thing. Waaay back I built a system to go in Harrods department store and in other supermarkets, basically SBCs of similar grunt to Raspberry Pi's now, running Csound. I made generative scores to create sound effects and ambient music all day long. That company, The Sound Agency, is still going AFAIK. > And what about creators / composers? Did they show any interest at the time? Well of course. But here's where I have to bite my lip, because to be honest they don't always.. well artists. Eno obviously gets it. Guy coined the "Generative music" thing in so many ways... but Eno actually releases recordings. He selects the good stuff and puts it out as definitive form. I've always argued that's a different art form from what we were doing in the Shoreditch arts hacker scene back in 2005-2012. We were releasing stuff as code, so songs and albums in Supercollider or Pure Data - very much inspired by the German demo scene where it was common to release music as a .exe and each time you run it you get something a little different.