A generative piece sounds different every time it is played. The first indications of generative music date from the composer Johann Philipp Kirnberger in 1757, he wrote a work entitled "Musikalisches Wrfelspiel" based on a series of templates written by him, which he modified according to the result of rolling dice.
Generative Music 1 is the name of a floppy disk (composed by Brian Eno in 1996). The work, made up of twelve pieces, was not recorded in an audio format, but in '.skp' format, and therefore, to be able to listen to it you would need the Sseyo Koan player software, a real-time music generation system. As the Sseyo Koan is an algorithmic generative software, each time the piece is played, a new and random version of the work is generated -from certain parameters determined by Eno-. In 2007 the software has changed its name to Noatikl, retaining its original characteristics, and in 2017 it evolves to be called Wotja 4.
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| Koan Plus software. |
The idea behind generative music is to use some kind of system or process to create structure, notes, and other sound elements. Your role as a composer is to define the system or process, to shape the results by making informed artistic decisions. The training process is done in composition or during the performance, if you prefer.
When a generative theme is played, musical events arise, whether the composer intervenes or not; the results will be unique every time. In other words, using some kind of computer algorithm to create a “fixed” tune like MIDI or audio looping on a track is not an example of generative music. To be generative, this algorithm has to be used every time the song is played to create a new interpretation.
A somewhat basic example is a random mode arpeggiator. Its “choice of a random note from the sustained ones”, and the tempo of the basic notes, describe a simple generative system. You, the composer, shape the results by choosing when to hold notes and which notes are held. If you record those notes in your sequencer and let the arpeggiator act every time the song is played, then we are talking about a generative theme. If you instead record the notes generated by the arpeggiator as MIDI or audio, it is not generative - it is a simple example of algorithmic composition.
Here you are the most recent generative music experiment from Brian Eno, REFLECTION:
"REFLECTION is the most recent of my Ambient experiments and represents the most sophisticated of them so far. My original intention with Ambient music was to make endless music, music that would be there as long as you wanted it to be. I wanted also that this music would unfold differently all the time - ‘like sitting by a river’: it’s always the same river, but it’s always changing. But recordings - whether vinyl, cassette or CD - are limited in length, and replay identically each time you listen to them. So in the past I was limited to making the systems which make the music, but then recording 30 minutes or an hour and releasing that. REFLECTION in its album form - on vinyl or CD - is like this. But the app by which REFLECTION is produced is not restricted: it creates an endless and endlessly changing version of the piece of music." - Brian Eno
And here you are a very good and deep book about this theme:
Lee el libro completo aquí [Español]
Leggi il riassunto qui [Italiano]
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