Category: Fall 22

Complexity does not ensure the musical value of a piece of composition. A piece can be totally creative and random but does not hold much significance in a musical sense. The very nature of music makes live coding music more difficult than creating visuals. That is to say, it requires more deliberations and more experimentations with sound from us,. Not only do we need to make 10 times more the effort with which we experiment with images, but we also need to know in what directions are we making the efforts. In other words, we need to know how to improve the musical value of a piece of composition. 

Namely, a good musical piece always has development, evolution, and form. Music, since it carries more emotions, takes on a more important role in conveying them. For example, it is easier to make people feel happy by feeding them an upbeat melody than by presenting them with visual patterns. Admittedly, we can also use certain types of images and visuals to signal emotions, such as slow waves for tranquility, the dark color theme for horror, or messy lines for anxiety. But in my opinion, visuals are not as powerful as sounds. Therefore, the design of sounds comes in the front. 

Looping the music helps increase the musicality, but only to a certain extent. As time goes by, the entropy decreases and it is not that attractive to the audience anymore. This is where we want to notch it up a little by introducing noise, the random factor. At first, it seemed a little bit counterintuitive to me because good music needs to retain a certain form. But noise brings information. It all depends on how well you are using the noise. A successful introduction of noise that takes noise vulnerability factors, the nature of noise, etc. helps us to achieve a balance between entropy(the information) and musicality.

“Put simply, information theory is a mathematical theory of how to optimize a signal for communication in a noisy channel and of how communication degrades in such a medium.”

The starting line of this article immediately caught my attention. There is something about the way the definition was so precise, and the way that the author portrayed it so confidently. As a reader, it draws me in and intrigues me, making me want to explore what exactly they mean by the phrase above. As I continued reading, I quite enjoyed the way that the author slowly built up to their point, the same way a musician would slowly build up to the final composition of their song. Instead of directly introducing their point, the broke it down into smaller pieces, which when put together, mended together to form the whole point. It felt familiar in a way, and it is something I quite enjoyed.

Another thing that stood out to me was when the author asks the question “Is it musical?”. Although mentioned in different context, it is a phrase that was mentioned quite a few times in the text. It felt as though they are echoing their thoughts and ideas. As a reader I felt included in the process. Not only that, but I felt validated, in the sense that I felt like I was not the only person who has these questions in their head. When it comes to composition, you are relying on your own sound. What makes this so difficult and intimidating is that every person has a sound that is unique to them. That is why when it comes to sharing your work, you become intimidated by the fact that your work may not resonate with people, because it may not meet a certain standard. We even saw this in during our latest live coding performance in class. Although the content that we learn is the same, the way that each person approached their project was completely different. To link it back to the main point, by saying “is it musical?”, the author is in a way confiding in the readers, showing that while each person has a different process, there is comfort in knowing that there is somewhat of a shared and common struggle when it comes to the composition of a piece. I am not quite sure how relevant it is to the reading, but it is a correlation that immediately came to mind, one that I wanted to share. That is why when the author also casually and consistently mentions this question, and outwardly expresses their thought process, I feel even more connected to the work.

I grew up playing classical piano, and my father who plays the guitar and is a math enthusiast, always told me that music theory is just pure math. My experience in this class is further proving his point. In this week’s reading, Spiegel breaks down the concept of information theory and how it could be used in music. I particularly found her explanation of choosing sounds “vulnerable to corruption” to be informative, as I usually just experiment with random values and introduce noise, but now I can do it with a bit more intentionality.

Speigel also brings up the idea of whether there is such a process as composition, and I’ve been thinking about this for a while! After transitioning from classical music to different genres, I joined a band, and I found the times when we were brainstorming lyrics to write or melodies really challenging because nothing ever felt original. Whatever lyric I wrote, I can pinpoint a source song or artist that it was directly influenced by or borrowed from. We always hear from older generations that there is no longer music like what they had during their times. I still wonder: are we past the point of originality and novelty in music, and if we’re not, how can we ensure that what we’re making is a new composition? Or actually, does that even matter if the music speaks to someone and is enjoyed by audiences?

“[I]nformation theory is a mathematical theory of how to optimize a signal for communication in a noisy channel and of how communication degrades in such a medium.” Okay, math is not my cake, but the application of mathematical theory in composing seems interesting and promising. My profession with music was mainly gained from traditional instrument practice (flute). It was by playing in the school’s orchestra team that I learned more theories (in English), but I’m still quite limited in music accomplishment and composing. In the meantime, I do know that music and composing have been involving more and more math and programming as new media emerge. It is again, in fact, stimulating our thoughts on computational creativity. 

 

Laurie Spiegel thinks that random noise can be meaningful signals in other contexts. That makes sense considering the noise of repairing roads. However, I’m not sure how to position the purely numerical randomness in digital music. For d1 $ sound “hh*8” # gain (range 0.8 1.5 rand), what is the context that makes more sense and what is not? Furthermore, Spiegel claims that at the essence of auditory imagination is just re-generation/transformation of previous materials in humans’ perceptual and cognitive systems. In that case, computational creativity might not be about creating something completely new, but new “permutation and combination” that can trigger emotional reactions in certain environments. 

 

What I didn’t see discussed is the subjectivity about creation (composing). Yes, noise works. Entropy variable works. The outcome does affect audiences’ emotions, but what about the composer? Creating compositional models should definitely be different from traditional composing regarding subjective experience and reward. Making an analogy with “art” versus “design”, this process seems more like design: it’s using principles to create things for people. 

 

Written in 1997, the article already looks quite advanced for me. I wonder what has changed, and what new theories or models have appeared from that time till now.

For our performance this week, one of the ways I tried to brainstorm was by listening to specific songs and deconstructing them — trying to understand the layers that make up each song, and how I can use that as inspiration for my own performance. One of the main elements of my live coding performance, for example, was this bass drum beat:

d1 $ sound "{808bd:12 [808bd:73]}" # room "0.03"

I came to this beat after listening to Fred Again.. ‘s song Marnie (wish i had u) and trying to understand how he gradually constructs and put together relatively simple layers and elements that make up the song. I eventually couldn’t escape this way of thinking while shuffling my playlist and thought of putting together a collaborative class playlist where we can drop in tracks that inspire us while we’re figuring out how to live code music. I started a collaborative Spotify playlist that you can check out and add to here. Let me know if you have any thoughts, or if another platform like youtube could be more accessible to people! (✨pls add songs I love exploring and learning what other people listen to✨)

“I consider randomness a relativistic phenomenon: any signal, no matter how internally consistent or meaningful it is within its own context, may be perceived as random noise relative to some other coherent signal.”

In this reading, the author delves into the topic of music composition and randomness, and makes us question whether musical composition even exists. The author argues that randomness is relative, and that any sound, if placed in a different context, can be considered random sound. I am not convinced by this argument. Firstly, I do not believe that random, unpredictable sounds make a ‘composition’ more musical. I believe that all music has meaning, and if a series of random sounds are arranged together, there is no meaning behind it and therefore it is not music.

Putting this in the context of live coding, I don’t know if I can call the sounds created by live coding ‘music’, mainly because live coding relies on unpredictability and randomness as an art form. Perhaps a live coding piece which has already been rehearsed, with each sound predetermined could be considered music, but I personally believe that live coding is only ‘live’ if the artist engages in some improvisation.

 

Throughout most of my life, I have understood music composition to be an arrangement of sounds in a specific manner and duration in order to convey a mood (message).
However, this reading aimed to question that, but it left me feeling confused. At first, it starts by explaining that a basic melody is not necessarily music. Music needs to have:

  • development
  • evolution
  • form
  • a sense of anticipation

    • I’m not sure if perhaps I did not understand the reading but I find that definition to be contradictory with the message of the paper. The author explains that a repeating melody lacks anticipation because the audience already knows what type of information to expect. However, modern songs are actually 1-3 minutes in length (not very long and with repeating melodies) and most people tend to listen to songs over and over again. Of course, after a certain amount of time, people get exhausted from listening to the same thing, but then, wouldn’t that mean that the length rather than the repetition is what is important in a composition?

    The reading touches on the topic of random generation vs random corruption, but in traditional music composition, things are rarely random. So perhaps this randomness is something that computer composition could add (which is still not 100% random because computers till now can not create 100% randomness). It seems to me that it could actually allow for a more dynamic listening experience as each version of a song could be slightly different to the next because there is randomness associate.

    Then, I’m also wondering if improvisaton can be thought as spontaneous composition, or basically creating a melody in the spot. Tying to this, the reading also concerned itself with what an original piece is and what it is not. There is a process to compose music, there are rules that can be bend to the author’s will and there is inspiration from existing music. So if most of the composition process is derived from previous songs/works and rules, then what makes a piece original?

    On a side note, it was interesting for me to read about how people process, perceive and listen to information differently because that was exactly what the Apple Launch said, using it to justify buying the new AirPods Pro.