Hi, Yes, I do understand Brian's approach - chatted a while with him many moons ago! Yes, he used the various generative tools to create chunks of sound to be used in building pieces. You are absolutely right about these processes going nowhere - which is why I generated the midi tracks, popped on the VSTi, and then generated the waveforms. From then I automated the volumes and pans to create some "musical interest". As you say, the software tools pretty much lack the ability to create "standard" musical structures as we typically know them, and being free running, they of course continue "doodling" for ever (not a good thing), although Brian did do a 3 hour piano concert where he sat and pressed the keys with his arms folded - not even a "prepared" piano either - the idea was to listen to the "structures" within the sound of many notes. Most walked out, but a few die hards stayed to the end. Go figure! I simply see this technology/technique as a means to create interesting textures which you just might not have happened upon yourself, but with a certain amount of control to generate in a key or set of keys with a certain harmonic structure, to allow the snippets to be used in more "mainstream" compositions. Hope this makes some sense as to where I was coming from. Cheers, and thanks for the comment, all good, dB

It does require a bit of patience to listen to the whole thing. I think the odd discord here and there makes it interesting. I agree that the thing to do is to chop up what's been generated and rearrange it make some sense of it. I like the idea of use generative tools to find something that you would never have considered otherwise, but in the end the work has to tell a story if it's going to connect with the audience. That's where the human intervention comes in (at least, for now).

I didnt mean "standard structures" in a sense of "you have to have always some V - II - VI or whatever harmonies". or have a song structure or a symphony structure. these tools lack the knowledge of how to build up suspense and release suspense. in all aspects: rhythmically, harmonically, melodywise. if one of these tools would have parameters as e.g. "build harmonically tension about 2 min, release it within 10 seconds, modulate 2 steps down and build a new tension for 1 min and use all 12/24 keys throughout the whole thing modulating via thirds in chords being new root note or tritonus substitution (use these both at random) and keep parts of being 8 - 12 bars long, change the beat pattern not abrupt but evolve with the supspense curve ... " you get the picture. I am with you when it comes to textures. these tools can clearly go where nearly no musician could imagine that you could go there. there was for Atari a long time ago a program called Presto. that thing could follow such kind of rules, but lacked the aspect of creating textures.

Thanks LightofDay. When I was working with Richard Orton, I was looking to design and program some new structures into his system Tabula Vigilans. The idea was to have some form of "event" scheduling to help with structural elements/forms (lacking in most/all the generative stuff of late!), and of course, a scheduled event could be scheduling another. So you could have notes, chord changes, etc etc setup to happen sometime in the timeline of the pieces. If you could "macro-ize" a series of events/sections/patterns then of course, you could then schedule them to happen. Of course, another aspect would be to generate "code" for future execution as well - anything would have been possible. Sadly, it didn't happen. Worked with Trevor Wishart et al as well and various folk on the original Desktop Composers Project (CDP). Ataris followed by SGI Indigos and then to PC's. Cheers, dB

Well I thought that was cool, liked it a lot! A bit like Bee Mask in some places - could definitely do with refinement. I don't think all music should always be about suspense and release, sometimes just immersing yourself in continuous flow for an unspecified amount of time is liberating.