Fwd: Re: Randomness

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From: John F. Sprague <JSprague@dhcr.state.ny.us>
Subject: Re: Randomness
Date: Tue, 23 Jan 2001 21:11:03 GMT
To: thcdelta@ihug.co.nz

I believe I understand what you are trying to do. You would like the computer to compose the thematic material, which it will then develop and harmonize using algorithms. Perhaps the computer will also determine the rhythm using a second set of random numbers. Of course, the algorithms will have been written by humans and likely tend to compose it the style of someone whose music was analyzed for form and structure so as to develop the algorithm.
From the standpoint of information theory, the interesting thing about randomness is that it can either contain the greatest possible information in the shortest code (because it is totally non-redundant) or it may contain no useable information whatsoever, like a code that cannot be deciphered. This appears to be a paradox.
Isaac Asimov made an interesting observation in his "Intelligent Man's Guide to Science" about forty years ago. Much less was known then about the genetic code, but he wrote that it appeared to be a random sequence. The genetic code appears to have some redundancy and a lot of probably unnecessary "historical" data tracing evolution: "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny" (the development of the egg goes through stages similar to the evolution of the species). Most music has a lot of repetition (redundancy) which helps it "hang together" and make it memorable. There are a few examples I've heard of music which does not do this, which makes a fascinating difference. For example, "The Mirrored Moon" from "Seven Pastels of the Lake Constance" by Sigfrid Karg-Elert.

>>> Sarn Richard Ursell <thcdelta@ihug.co.nz> 01/23/01 03:17AM >>>
***Why start with random numbers? Do you think human composers do, apart
from people such as John Cage? Isn't that a bit like expecting monkeys at
typewriters to turn out the works of Shakespeare, eventually? And why
radioactive decay as a source of random numbers? Is that more likely to
create "le jazz hot"?

I feel that algorithmic composition should be based on random numbers, due
to the fact, that this is, in a sence, the purest form of random tones, and
random volumes, and randomness that could be sculptured, in a sence to
produce structured music.

I always felt that by using a pre-human composed musical source, and taking
fragments from this, was in a sence cheating, that in order to have some
TRUELY intelligent softward, which was truely capable of making music, it
would be, in the purest sence, creating music from "scratch/nothing".

I feel this because with humans, there is almost always a tendancy to read,
and to make patterns...

I recall reading in one of Clifford A Pickover's books that an experiment
was performed, with the pressing of left and right buttons on a computer,
and the object of the exercise was to make as random a pattern as possible.

Humans almost always failed abismally when the number made was analysed by
0, 1, 00/01/10/11, 000/001/010/100/011/110/101/111 etc....

It is like, compareing a montage in a sence to a computer programme that
makes good art when I instruct it to with minimal input.

Radioactive decay, I have ben told is ABSOLUTELY random, and a man made
physical system is quasi-random.

--Sarn.

--- In tuning@y..., "John F. Sprague" <jsprague@d...> wrote:

/tuning/topicId_17924.html#17924

> Most music has a lot of repetition (redundancy) which helps
> it "hang together" and make it memorable. There are a few
> examples I've heard of music which does not do this, which
> makes a fascinating difference. For example, "The Mirrored Moon"
> from "Seven Pastels of the Lake Constance" by Sigfrid Karg-Elert.

Another example (and an awesome one, IMO) is Schoenberg's
monodrama _Erwartung_, in which he attempted (quite successfully)
to eliminate any trace of motivic or harmonic repetition. To my
ears, this fantastic piece mirrors the stream-of-consciousness
thoughts and feelings of the single character in a most powerful
fashion.

(How about a link to the Karg-Elert piece, if it's on the web?)

-monz
http://www.monz.org
"All roads lead to n^0"