Stochastic Composition and Stochastic Timbre: GENDY3 by Iannis Xenakis

Abstract

GENDY3 BY IANNIS XENAKIS is a stochastic music work entirely produced by a computer program written in 1991 by the composer himself at CEMAMu. The work GENDT3 is the continuation of the series of stochastic music works that Xenakis inaugurated in 1955 with Metastasis. In GENDT3, the use of stochastic rules is more deeply systematic, as the composer says in his recent publication (Xenakis 1991b). Not only is the musical structure of GENDT3 stochastic, but the sound synthesis is also based on a stochastic algorithm that Xenakis invented and called dynamic stochastic synthesis. In this paper, we describe the whole process of the computation of GENDT3, from the low-level sound production to the high-level global architecture. We also take up aspects which This content downloaded from 207.46.13.111 on Tue, 09 Aug 2016 05:56:14 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms GENDY3 by lannis Xenakis 237 GENDY3 has in common with earlier stochastic works which Xenakis composed and described in Formalized Music (Xenakis 1971).1 The stochastic program that was used for the composition of GENDT3 is partly listed in the new edition of Formalized Music (Xenakis 1991a).