The philosophy and design of a real‐time music‐structure generating system

Abstract

Abstract The microcomputer system described enables the user to arrive at musical structures which are satisfactory for a particular purpose, without needing to specify them explicitly. It is argued that on the microtemporal scale satisfactory timbres are routinely elicited from conventional instruments without the need for knowledge of the mechanisms which map the physical input to the acoustical output space. The system is an attempt to extend this intuitive kind of control to a higher level of musical structure.To achieve this it needs to operate in real time and impose heavy constraints (both context‐free and context‐sensitive) on its output. A central generating algorithm is used to govern pitch, rhythm, dynamic‐level and other musical parameters. The probability distributions which impose the constraints can be modified at ‘run time’ through interactive graphics and joystick controls. The use of an evolutionary strategy for accelerating the searching process is discussed.