Arts and Humanities Commons^™

Musical Behaviours: Algorithmic Composition Via Plug-Ins, Bruno Degazio

Publications and Scholarship

The author’s recent software research addresses a deficiency in commercial musical composition software: the limited ability to apply algorithmic processes to the practice of musical composition. The remedy takes the form of a software plug-in design called “musical behaviours” — compositional algorithms of limited scope that can be applied cumulatively and in real time to MIDI performance data. The software runs on the author’s software composition platform, The Transformation Engine.

A Particle System For Musical Composition, Bruno Degazio

Publications and Scholarship

This paper describes the development of a software particle system for musical composition. It employs a generator as described in William Reeves’ seminal 1983 paper on the subject, but one in which the particles are musical themes rather than images or points of light. This is distinct from an audio-level particle system such as might be employed effectively in conjunction with granular synthesis, because an audio-level process has no “musical intelligence” in the traditional sense as the term is used in discussing rhythm, melody, harmony or other traditional musical qualities. The particle system uses the author’s software, The Transformation Engine …

Software Tools For Electronic Wind Instrument Performance, Bruno Degazio

Publications and Scholarship

Even though alternate musical controllers such as the Electronic Wind Instrument (EWI) significantly extend the expressive range of MIDI synthesizers and software virtual instruments, the computer-based editing and manipulation of data produced by these controllers has remained in an undeveloped state. A primary problem has to do with the binding of note data to expressive information such as breath controller and pitch bend data. MIDI, originally designed as a real-time performance protocol, has very weak binding of such data into higher-level musical structures; so weak in fact that even note endings are unconnected to their beginnings. The author describes a …

Музикално-Философските „Картини" На Касия [Kassia's Musico-Philosophical “Paintings”], Anna K. Boshnakova

Publications and Scholarship

This article is dedicated to the unique musico-philosophical "paintings" of Kassia - gifted poet and composer, wrote over fifty liturgical chants and more than two hundred secular verses in the forms of epigrams, gnomic verses, and moral sentences. She was born around AD. 810, probably in Constantinople, and died sometime between 843 and 867. Kassia's fame and importance is documented by Nikephoros Kallistos Xanthopoulos in his fourteenth-century catalogue of important Byzantine hymnographers, in which she is the only woman composer acknowledged. As а composer of sacred poems, (which are remarkable example of melopsychographia), her musical inventiveness was very important …

Музикалната Епистемология На Аристоксен [Musical Epistomology Of Aristoxenus], Anna K. Boshnakova

Publications and Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Transformation Engine, Bruno Degazio

Publications and Scholarship

The Transformation Engine is a software music composition system for the Macintosh computer, based on a hierarchical model of musical structure derived from the theories of Heinrich Schenker. It implements processes of musical transformation in real time, i.e. Schenkerian prolongations (“composing-out”) can be executed while the user listens to a high performance MIDI rendering of the music. The Transformation Engine also employs technical devices derived from the musical theories of Joseph Schillinger. The software has been used for algorithmic composition using planetary position data and chaotic processes as drivers for musical transformations. It also has applications to traditional forms of …

"Музиката" На Сократ [The 'Music' Of Socrates], Anna K. Boshnakova

Publications and Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Evolution Of Musical Organisms, Bruno Degazio

Publications and Scholarship

The development of software for musical applications has led to a proliferation of elaborate control paradigms with extremely large parameter spaces. These spaces can be daunting to explore interactively because of their vastness. Furthermore, parameters often interact in ways not made explicit by the control panel, effectively increasing the complexity of the space even further. Application of genetic algorithms (GAs) can be used to search through these vast spaces in a highly efficient manner. Coordinated control of interacting parameters is handled automatically by this system. Even for control paradigms that are well understood, the genetic algorithm can efficiently search out …

A Computer-Based Editor For Lerdahl And Jackendoff's Rhythmic Structures, Bruno Degazio

Publications and Scholarship

In “A Generative Theory of Tonal Music”, Lerdahl and Jackendoff discuss two forms of rhythmic structure which they call metrical structure and grouping structure. Together these constitute a basis for an analytical understanding of rhythmic structure in music. This article is about a software based editor which allows the interactive exploration of these two types of hierarchical rhythmic structures.

Towards A Chaotic Musical Instrument, Bruno Degazio

Publications and Scholarship

The goal of this project is to produce a software musical instrument using chaotic processes as a sound synthesis method. Real-time control through MIDI note messages and continuous controllers is required. Early results are described, along with suggestions for continuing work.

New Software Composition Tools, Bruno Degazio

Publications and Scholarship

This paper briefly discusses a number of software tools developed at the author's studio through the course of research work into algorithmic composition. Most of the tools developed are directly related to recursive techniques; some, however, arise from more general techniques of algorithmic composition first described by Joseph Schillinger.

Examples of recursive techniques include:
• META-FRACTALS - separating musical content from recursive structure
• the Lorenz attractor and Koch snowflake as musical generators
• Iterated Function Systems as musical generator
• dynamic values in the logistic equation and the Mandelbrot set.

Non-recursive tools include:
• the Intelligent Interval Tool - …

The Development Of Context Sensitivity In The Midiforth Computer Music System, Bruno Degazio

Publications and Scholarship

This paper reports on the development in the MIDIFORTH computer music system of context-sensitive editing features, such as the ability to highlight MIDI events based on their position within a melodic or rhythmic pattern, and on pitch or other relationships to surrounding events. The software mechanism that implements this is discussed, and some examples of the musical desirability of such features are presented.

The Schillinger System Of Musical Composition And Contemporary Computer Music, Bruno Degazio

Publications and Scholarship

The author will describe the results of a research project involving the investigation of Joseph Schillinger's theories of rhythm and tonality as they relate to contemporary areas of algorithmic composition such as fractal music. In particular, the author will describe his work in the following areas:

a) the use of Schillinger's fundamental technique of interference

b) the relationship of Schillinger's notion of geometrical projection to techniques of fractal musical composition.

c) the application of fractal processes to Schillinger's emotional and semantic(connotational) schemes (i.e., the psychological dial).

Musical Aspects Of Fractal Geometry, Bruno Degazio

Publications and Scholarship

The author will discuss the direction and goals of his research into applications of fractal processes to automated musical composition. Factors relating to the choice of fractal methods, the application of geometric formalisms to music, and the aesthetic implications of self-similarity- will be discussed. Tape recorded examples of musical fractals will be played. The report will conclude with a summary of problems encountered and challenges presented to future research in this area.