6 ms·
Generating Music (with an algorithm)
- markyc 14y agoit sounds like i expected it would :)
- bozho 14y agobad, or artificial? If "artificial" - that's the performance side, and it depends on the soundbank. If a real performer plays the same score, it would sound better. The point is to have nice compositions first :)
- markyc 14y agosounds are ok (to my untrained ear), and great effort building this! still, a little too random since it's algoritmic, maybe you can go for a little "coherence" throughout a piece, if it makes sense?
- bozho 14y agosure, any feedback is welcome. The thing is still in an experimental phase, and I'm trying to improve it bit by bit
- Strilanc 14y agoI've been wondering how long it would be until web sites like this started showing up, where you can listen to automatically generated music on demand. Hopefully they keep improving until they make the best human composers look mediocre, despite being millions of times faster. Unbounded amounts of new high quality low cost music? Yes please.
- bozho 14y agoMy point is similar, but not exactly the same. The best human composers will still be the best. However, the other 90% may be replaced by computers. Or, computers may generate some "skeletons", which real composers can use and enrich.
- tomjen3 14y agoEven better, this could be a very good way to permanently kill RIAA -- and because tech like this can't really be made illegal and requires no special permission, ingrediences or tools, there is nothing at all they can do about it.
- DanBC 14y agoHave you seen DarwinTunes? (http://darwintunes.org/ http://darwintunes.org/)
- cdcarter 14y agoWe still haven't really solved the problem of getting a digital piano to sound anything like a Steinway Concert Grand. Even if we could replace artistic expression with algorithm in this instance, the instrument sound itself has miles to go as well, and may well never be replicated with the precision that a true piano has.
- buymorechuck 14y agoHave you heard of Pianoteq? http://www.pianoteq.com/ http://www.pianoteq.com/
- cdcarter 14y agoI've heard it a few times. I like the sound a lot, but I know a few artists who still won't use it.
- songgao 14y agoHave you ever thought of using some more complicated algorithm for randomness, e.g., genetic algorithm? http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=genetic+algorithm+music+generation&btnG=&hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C1 http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=genetic+algorithm+music+...
- bozho 14y agoI have indeed looked at some genetic algorithms and a lot of papers on the topic (in fact, my former university has a course about that, so I read the coursebook). Most of what I have read is either included, attempted, or in TODO. And obviously, I need to read some more.
- songgao 14y agoThat interactive thing looks useful. It might be possible to build a music composer (website) using collective intelligence, i.e., producing music by taking people's response into consideration?
- bozho 14y agoThe idea of "liking" and "disliking" is to: 1. Get a collection of 'best' tracks that sort-of advertises the successful parts of the algorithm 2. To let me analyze which intermediate decisions in the generation process are good and which not, so that I can make the good ones happen more often.
- mixedbit 14y agoIn 1995 Douglas Hofstadter wrote a short essay that describes his amazement with a piece of music composed by a program. Interesting reading: http://www.cs.washington.edu/education/courses/cse403/03su/materials/Essay-Douglas-Hofstadter.htm http://www.cs.washington.edu/education/courses/cse403/03su/m...
- bozho 14y agoGreat. The composer doesn't need to have gone through emotional breakdown, drugs, or whatever, to create beautiful music. He just needs talant. And I think talant may be at some point expressed in zeroes and ones.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- gtani 14y agoHmm, no mention of Prof. Cope at UCSC http://artsites.ucsc.edu/faculty/cope/experiments.htm http://artsites.ucsc.edu/faculty/cope/experiments.htm
- mhax 14y agoMy thoughts exactly. Virtual Music gives a great insight into Cope's ideas: http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/virtual-music http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/virtual-music Sadly his code (lisp if I remember correctly) isn't on github either...
- nanook 14y agoWhat's really missing is a hook. None of this music would feel familiar even after a lot of listens because there's hardly any repetition. It should be interesting to try to generate a track that sticks to popular song structures(with each part sticking to an underlying theme). I've always wanted to look into algorithmic composition. Could someone suggest a good place to start?
- diminish 14y agoTerrific, I guess the first virtual minds will love these first algorithmic songs; from an historical point of view.
- mrcharles 14y agoThis is probably one of the best algorithmic music generators I've heard. It has a lot more feel of composition to it than most I've heard.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- hayksaakian 14y agoThe music at any given point sounds great, like classic video game bgm, but theres one thing that irks me. I don't feel a clear start and end to the music, it just seems abrupt both ways.
- bozho 14y agotrue that, I'll try to improve the general structure, so that it sounds complete
- gnosis 14y agoAlso see: http://musicalgorithms.ewu.edu/algorithms/import.html http://musicalgorithms.ewu.edu/algorithms/import.html
- bozho 14y agoI deliberately made it generate/play tracks with 0 user input. This thing might be good, but I couldn't make it play anything meaningful
- jmmcd 14y agoI have generated quite a bit of music using evolutionary algorithms. My research is mostly about figuring out representations that are not at too low a level (eg 1 "gene" per note). I like representations that in some way represent the patterns, oscillations, and processes that seem to drive music forward over time. A paper: http://ncra.ucd.ie/papers/gecco2011_jmcdermott.pdf http://ncra.ucd.ie/papers/gecco2011_jmcdermott.pdf Some short mp3s: http://www.skynet.ie/~jmmcd/software/GraphMusicDemoPieces.tgz http://www.skynet.ie/~jmmcd/software/GraphMusicDemoPieces.tg... Longer, slow-developing stuff on soundcloud (using slightly different software): http://soundcloud.com/jmmcd/tomorrow-is-a-new-day http://soundcloud.com/jmmcd/tomorrow-is-a-new-day
- bozho 14y agothey sound pretty nice :) will read the paper immediately
- jmmcd 14y agoThanks -- I think they're kind of nice at a "local" level, but they don't have the more "global" coherent movement that yours have.
- rorrr 14y agoWhere did you get the instrument sounds?
- jmmcd 14y agoGarageband! It's a pretty crappy sequencer, but the synth sounds are fine. I imported the midi tracks saved by the algorithm and then mostly just chose from the preset synth sounds. One problem I noticed sometimes was a limit to Garageband's polyphony in the pianos. I think it only allows 8 or 10 notes at a time in some cases (not sure exactly how it works) and my software has a habit of playing a lot more than that.
- MichailP 14y agoNice work. Is anybody aware of automatic music performing software? I think that this is similar to automatic generation of music but more structured and therefore easier to implement. I remember reading some studies about software performing classical compositions, but never found working prototype to play with.
- bozho 14y agoI've read some papers about software used to help live performers, some sort of co-performer, or accompanying robot. But I can't find the paper right now..
- MichailP 14y agoYap, there is a bunch of papers, but no publicly available prototype to try. Imagine having a python module: from imaginary_music_module import piano_performer as p p.play("chopin.ly", style="Pogorelich") That would be nice :)
- rorrr 14y agoYou need better instruments sounds, they sound worse than S3M instruments that I messed with in the 90's.
- bozho 14y agoWill look for a better soundbank, indeed
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- jmpp 14y agoYup, I've read this just after have posted the question. Thx ;)
- simonbohs 14y agoI took part in a "create a game in a day" event recently. Some of the compositions sounded like they would have been perfect for the game, which leads to the strange question: what is the copyright on music composed by the algorithm?
- bozho 14y agoCreative Commons is the one I picked
- b1daly 14y agoThere are at least two major areas of music composition which the algorythmic attempts fall vastly short of humans. One is that real music composition is never done where the timbres are separated from the composition. Classically notated music looks kind of like this, but it's really just a shorthand. A composer knows intimately the sounds she is working with. For pop music, the timbre itself is a mode of creative expression. Innovation in musical timbres and sounds is an expected part of pop music. (I'm using "pop" in the most general sense, covering a large amount of contemporary genres). The meaning of the music is not captured by simplistic reference to musical notation concepts. The other major limitation of generated music, to my ears, is that of overall compositional structure. The units of composition usually are short, and only locally referenced. So the compositions lack interesting shape over the course of time. If you think of a composition as a story, it's as if a bunch of plausible paragraph that are coherent within them selves are strung together with only loose reference to each other. So a longer "plot" doesn't emerge.
- Joeboy 14y ago> One is that real music composition is never done where the timbres are separated from the composition. It's true that composers almost always have a sound in mind when they write the notes, but it's very common to perform compositions using entirely different instrumentation to that originally envisaged.
- stagas 14y agoThe best one I've ever heard was AlgoMusic[0] on the Amiga by Thomas Schürger. I used to spend hours listening to it. And it was a pleasant surprise while searching for it now, to find out that the author has a brand new project called SoundHelix[1] that has all the awesomeness of AlgoMusic, and sounds even more incredible. You should listen to the examples[2]. [0]: http://aminet.net/package/mus/misc/AlgoMusic2_4 http://aminet.net/package/mus/misc/AlgoMusic2_4 [1]: http://www.soundhelix.com/ http://www.soundhelix.com/ [2]: http://www.soundhelix.com/audio-examples http://www.soundhelix.com/audio-examples
- teeja 14y agoThe program might benefit a lot from better timbres. It's hard to appreciate (or not) other features when the tones are so pallid, so impoverished.
- hakaaak 14y agoMan, that is some pretty crappy music. Good effort though. Algorithm needs more theory. Good music isn't that random. You are missing phrasing, repetition, rhythm.
- bozho 14y agoI'm not missing it - all three things are encoded there. They might not be that "visible", which is a point of improvement, but the theory is there. As I wrote in the blog "random" generates noise. That's why composition rules are needed.
- gordaco 14y agoAnother one, with a pretty bizarre UI: http://www.melomics.com http://www.melomics.com.
- virtualritz 14y agoDoes not work for me in Chrome. Works in Safari. I'm on a Macbook Pro.
- bozho 14y agostrange. It works on chrome on windows.
- jasonebaugh 14y agoThere is Wolfram Tones: http://tones.wolfram.com/ http://tones.wolfram.com/ It makes the mistake of trying to generate in established genres. None of the genres I care for were anywhere near the mark.