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>Reminds me of music created by some aleatoric process (Cage's I Ching stuff, perhaps). Interesting to think about... It probably wouldn't come with any surpri

>Reminds me of music created by some aleatoric process (Cage's I Ching stuff, perhaps). Interesting to think about... It probably wouldn't come with any surprise that I favor Harry Partch over Cage as far as modern American iconoclast composers go.. :) >It feels, though, that the practitioners are prone to getting caught up in the pseudo-novelty (novel, at least, to them) of how it is done at the expense of creating music that presents some engaging development arc. Indeed, this is the crux of the matter / critique as that was very apparent from the get go of the live coding (LC) movement. I think LC is a tool which can be useful at times for exploring different sounds, but is not well suited as a performance mechanism. There is no or little apparent composition process involved in what I have seen over 10 years of LC. The mechanism in itself does not make lasting art, but if used at bare minimum via the process of selection as part of a larger compositional process it is valid. I'm sure somewhere in the LC community this is happening, but it certainly isn't how the status quo operates or how LC is presented at large. In regard to TOPLAP et al; if you need to lead a "movement" with a manifesto to justify the musical output you're doing it wrong... Or in other words this movement like many before with leanings toward the avant-garde does not address that at the end of the day it's a handful of folks performing for other LC aficionados and no one else. One shouldn't need to buy into the manifesto to appreciate LC as art. In many ways by elevating LC to "movement status" it can capture and beguile a generation of computer musicians including HN readers who are new to computer music concepts & generative / algorithmic music. It's not the only game in town so to speak though I do have general respect for the immediatism aspect of LC as far as it aligns with the mechanism and performance in regard to just getting out there and "doing it". My experience and lifes work on the coding / performance side could be considered an antithesis to the LC movement; it's been a solo journey for me so far. My work has not been released yet though I may have been one of the first to build an alternative client / framework for SuperCollider ('02). It all started there and work continues today though it's branched beyond solely music / audio control, but I do hope to get back to music / performance applications and heck performing once the larger effort is released (and shock / gasp perhaps I'll make income to support the art side of things and future music-tech efforts).

yaxu 13y ago
Crikey that's glum. Live coding is developing vibrant communities of practice, and finding large audiences.
- AlgoBLAH 13y ago
  I suppose demanding more from the compositional process can be considered glum by some; it's not for everyone... There is also the aspect of making a living from creative coding and that path is a bit more circuitous than banging out the next algorave. I've already commended LC on immediatism aspects and this also includes community development. I question if large audiences have been found. Technically I'm not against LC or experimental electronic music... I'm against folks elevating the technique as a thing beyond just another basic tool in the toolbox.
  - yaxu 13y ago
    Here's one example of many I could pick: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeNszro5dQ8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeNszro5dQ8 I guess by your estimation this is a tiny audience with no musical composition involved. Are you seriously declaring that your own work is more compositionally developed than any of the 100s of live coders working over the past ten years? While clearly knowing little about the movement or the events we put on? And do you think the manifesto is particularly serious? Have you read it?
    - AlgoBLAH 13y ago
      >I guess by your estimation this is a tiny audience with no musical composition involved. It's in a large hall with nice projections and apparently still no one dancing.. Plus it's in Germany (so maybe someone is dancing!) and _part of a much larger multi-day city wide festival that was well attended_; in other words.. nice try. Give it a go in the US sometime at a non-festival based event and good luck with that... I'm sure most of the one off LC events are of average non-mainstream club going size, 100 if lucky, and composed of mostly performers and their significant others + handful of chin scratching friends. In regard to "no musical composition...", well if I had to guess there is probably plenty of basic _production_ involved, but well before the performance as part of a basic selection process. This selection process being no more advanced per se than most electronic music production using off the shelf software. Advanced composition... not so much... In this case the aspect of replacing turning a knob on a controller or hitting a key on a keyboard by choosing pre-determined (when things actually sound good!) algorithmic sequences by a small code change effectively does nothing to move live performance forward. Technically without having more insight into the linked performance I'd argue that there is a high chance it's also not truly "live coding". The REPL as the new keyboard is not novel and should not grant the music created in this direction any extra staying power or attention. >While clearly knowing little about the movement or the events we put on? What makes you think that especially when it comes to the technology involved? I personally would enjoy a LC event and if I'm ever nearby one I'd probably actually check it out. The whole LC movement if you will seems more like an excuse for various artists to get involved with a meme who otherwise would not be given any attention at all; a relatively good thing for your average computer music student within or just out of academia I guess. Smoke and mirrors basically... >And do you think the manifesto is particularly serious? Have you read it? No, it's ridiculous, and indeed I read it when it first came out ~10 years ago.. I assume it's not less ridiculous now? >Are you seriously declaring that your own work.... Uh, no, you're erroneously suggesting that, but that was my only mistake in this dialogue because it's the only thing you apparently can attack while avoiding a sound critique of LC. I took note of live coding capabilities and put them in the toolbox and continued on my way... Like I said LC is a very basic technique and one of many in the toolbox. I use it at times, but just not up on stage or as an excuse as to why my process is worth paying attention to over any other. from a previous yaxu post: >"This is not the future of electronic music, but now we've given it a stupid name people seem to be more interested." We agree on something... :) Would you agree that there is a fairly high percentage of artists performing under the LC banner that indeed precompose the majority of their performance? You seem to realize the actual situation and you must understand you are not trying to convince someone who is new to the domain / computer music or someone who doesn't write their own extensive software for creative coding. It was all hype then; it's all hype now... This doesn't mean live coding as a tool is invalid; just that it's being used at worst by tools to justify why they are special and the music isn't. At the end of the day one could argue that any attention by the larger public to computer music derived tools & techniques (SuperCollider, Chuck, Max/MSP, etc.) is a good thing, but there will be those like myself that will throw up a little in our mouths behind the scene... LC still doesn't solve the public appreciation / performance gap for computer music; it's still a perplexing problem and one that is going to require moving beyond LC to continue making progress.

yaxu 13y ago

Crikey that's glum. Live coding is developing vibrant communities of practice, and finding large audiences.

AlgoBLAH 13y ago
I suppose demanding more from the compositional process can be considered glum by some; it's not for everyone... There is also the aspect of making a living from creative coding and that path is a bit more circuitous than banging out the next algorave. I've already commended LC on immediatism aspects and this also includes community development. I question if large audiences have been found. Technically I'm not against LC or experimental electronic music... I'm against folks elevating the technique as a thing beyond just another basic tool in the toolbox.
- yaxu 13y ago
  Here's one example of many I could pick: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeNszro5dQ8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeNszro5dQ8 I guess by your estimation this is a tiny audience with no musical composition involved. Are you seriously declaring that your own work is more compositionally developed than any of the 100s of live coders working over the past ten years? While clearly knowing little about the movement or the events we put on? And do you think the manifesto is particularly serious? Have you read it?
  - AlgoBLAH 13y ago
    >I guess by your estimation this is a tiny audience with no musical composition involved. It's in a large hall with nice projections and apparently still no one dancing.. Plus it's in Germany (so maybe someone is dancing!) and _part of a much larger multi-day city wide festival that was well attended_; in other words.. nice try. Give it a go in the US sometime at a non-festival based event and good luck with that... I'm sure most of the one off LC events are of average non-mainstream club going size, 100 if lucky, and composed of mostly performers and their significant others + handful of chin scratching friends. In regard to "no musical composition...", well if I had to guess there is probably plenty of basic _production_ involved, but well before the performance as part of a basic selection process. This selection process being no more advanced per se than most electronic music production using off the shelf software. Advanced composition... not so much... In this case the aspect of replacing turning a knob on a controller or hitting a key on a keyboard by choosing pre-determined (when things actually sound good!) algorithmic sequences by a small code change effectively does nothing to move live performance forward. Technically without having more insight into the linked performance I'd argue that there is a high chance it's also not truly "live coding". The REPL as the new keyboard is not novel and should not grant the music created in this direction any extra staying power or attention. >While clearly knowing little about the movement or the events we put on? What makes you think that especially when it comes to the technology involved? I personally would enjoy a LC event and if I'm ever nearby one I'd probably actually check it out. The whole LC movement if you will seems more like an excuse for various artists to get involved with a meme who otherwise would not be given any attention at all; a relatively good thing for your average computer music student within or just out of academia I guess. Smoke and mirrors basically... >And do you think the manifesto is particularly serious? Have you read it? No, it's ridiculous, and indeed I read it when it first came out ~10 years ago.. I assume it's not less ridiculous now? >Are you seriously declaring that your own work.... Uh, no, you're erroneously suggesting that, but that was my only mistake in this dialogue because it's the only thing you apparently can attack while avoiding a sound critique of LC. I took note of live coding capabilities and put them in the toolbox and continued on my way... Like I said LC is a very basic technique and one of many in the toolbox. I use it at times, but just not up on stage or as an excuse as to why my process is worth paying attention to over any other. from a previous yaxu post: >"This is not the future of electronic music, but now we've given it a stupid name people seem to be more interested." We agree on something... :) Would you agree that there is a fairly high percentage of artists performing under the LC banner that indeed precompose the majority of their performance? You seem to realize the actual situation and you must understand you are not trying to convince someone who is new to the domain / computer music or someone who doesn't write their own extensive software for creative coding. It was all hype then; it's all hype now... This doesn't mean live coding as a tool is invalid; just that it's being used at worst by tools to justify why they are special and the music isn't. At the end of the day one could argue that any attention by the larger public to computer music derived tools & techniques (SuperCollider, Chuck, Max/MSP, etc.) is a good thing, but there will be those like myself that will throw up a little in our mouths behind the scene... LC still doesn't solve the public appreciation / performance gap for computer music; it's still a perplexing problem and one that is going to require moving beyond LC to continue making progress.