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[PaulMorel]

I've read a number of things by him.  His papers are v. interesting though, at least when I was following his publications (I've not been keeping up for the past three years or so), he said to me that he wasn't personally interested in generative procedures, but rather in musical analysis of existing works, and this is where his strongest contributions for the moment seem to lie.  His use of maths is solid (though some might question the purpose of some of his axiometizations).   That's not to say it doesn't hold a promise for these sorts of approaches.

You're absolutely right.  His stuff is all about analyzing current work, however, my interpretation of it is that his framework has a lot of potential for use as a basis for a generative system.  The generality of the system alone holds incredible power that makes a grammar-based model look wimpy.

increpare, I'm surprised that anyone else is even familiar with his work!   

[muku]

Jeff Minter experimented with fractal music in his 90s Camels game for the Konix. I've always been really partial to that approach, using the natural beauty of a fractal to make stuff for humans. I also like the idea of a background bassline and other song-global settings like tempo and key.

Nice info there. I just googled it, I guess this might be what you're referring to?

(music starts about halfway through)
Has a very interesting ambiance to it, with all those relentless arpeggios which still sound somewhat dreamlike. I like it.

In other news, I just got a prototype of a genetic algorithm composer working on my second attempt (the first one was really borked and didn't produce much of value). I only use it for the melodic rhythm so far, not the note pitches, but I feel that it already creates somewhat more structured melodies than my previous attempts. Seems really promising. It also converges pretty fast. I'll have to tune it a bit more, though for the rest of the day I'm afraid I'll have to do some serious work.

[Cymon]

The thing is that the problem is hard.... basically means teaching the computer creativity, and it's crazy difficult.

Really? I wouldn't have guessed. [/sarcasm] (I'd insert a laughing smiley at this point if such things weren't a blight on the work in my opinion.)

[muku]

The thing is that the problem is hard.... basically means teaching the computer creativity, and it's crazy difficult.

Really? I wouldn't have guessed. [/sarcasm] (I'd insert a laughing smiley at this point if such things weren't a blight on the work in my opinion.)

Well, your first comment sounded like you were making it a bit too easy

(And yes, I have made my peace with smileys. They no longer disturb my inner zen.)


For what it's worth, a new mp3 sample (ballad.mp3) is up. I have added arpeggiation of chords as an alternative to playing them polyphonically (perfect for those acoustic guitar accompaniments), and the melodic rhythm is generated by the new GA algorithm (not the pitches, those are still simple Markov stuff). I think it sounds a bit more "purposeful" already, but maybe that's just shiny new tool syndrome in effect on me. Timing drags slightly this time around, don't know what's up with that.

http://www.box.net/static/flash/box_explorer.swf?widgetHash=yiivqi0w0o&cl=0

[muku]

Uhhh. I just realized I could route my MIDI output into a VST host, into which I could then load a 2A03 VSTi (in other words, a NES soundchip emulator). So, after some fiddling around, I had myself a procedural chiptune generator. The sample is up on box.net; in a sudden outburst of creativity it was named chiptune.mp3.

Be warned though, this mp3 scales new heights of crappiness. There are glitches from the MIDI transfer, I spent only a few minutes setting up the instruments, and the tune itself sucks major donkey balls. Don't say I didn't warn you.

[Annabelle Kennedy]

this is actually really interesting.  i think with a bit of work this could get even better!

I think the melodies should have a larger range of differentiation between long and short notes.. as it seems to be pretty straight forward.

but great work!

[ravuya]

If I had more free time and a proper library for sound generation, I'd have to go and write a fractal music generator tied to a genetic algorithm. I imagine that could generate some true horrors, considering I have zero experience with music theory.

[muku]

If I had more free time and a proper library for sound generation, I'd have to go and write a fractal music generator tied to a genetic algorithm. I imagine that could generate some true horrors, considering I have zero experience with music theory.

Sound generation shouldn't be that much of a problem, the page I linked a few posts back has lots of nice chip emulators.
As for the rest, you can have my framework to play around in if you want it. I have even recently implemented a GA for the entire melody, now also including pitches. Do you already have a clear idea on how you'd do that, using fractals?

NB: I'm away over the weekend.