The Oxford Handbook of Algorithmic Music

712 Pages·2018·10.14 MB·english

by  Roger T. Dean

The Oxford Handbook of Algorithmic Music
Oxford Handbooks Online

The Oxford Handbook of Algorithmic Music

The Oxford Handbook of Algorithmic Music
Edited by Roger T. Dean and Alex McLean
Print Publication Date: Feb 2018 Subject: Music Online Publication Date: Feb 2018
(p. iv)
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: McLean, Alex | Dean, R. T.
Title: The Oxford handbook of algorithmic music/edited by Alex McLean & Roger T.
Dean.
Description: New York, NY: Oxford University Press, [2018] |
Series: Oxford handbooks |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017013174| ISBN 9780190226992 (cloth: alk. paper) |
ISBN 9780190227012 (oxford handbooks online)
Subjects: LCSH: Computer composition.
Classification: LCC MT56.O94 2017 | DDC 781.3/4—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017013174
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The Oxford Handbook of Algorithmic Music
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Contributors
Oxford Handbooks Online

Contributors

The Oxford Handbook of Algorithmic Music
Edited by Roger T. Dean and Alex McLean
Print Publication Date: Feb 2018 Subject: Music Online Publication Date: Feb 2018
Contributors
(p. ix)
Torsten Anders, Senior Lecturer in Media Arts and Course Leader for Music
Technology, University of Bedfordshire
Sarah Angliss, Visiting Research Fellow, Sound Practice Research Unit,
Goldsmiths, University of London
Jan Beran, Professor, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University of
Konstanz
Oliver Bown, Senior Lecturer, Arts and Design, University of New South Wales,
Sydney
Andrew Brown, Professor of Digital Arts, Queensland Conservatorium, Griffith
University
Jamie Bullock, Integra Lab, Birmingham Conservatoire
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Contributors
Warren Burt, composer and lecturer, Box Hill Institute, Melbourne
Baptiste Caramiaux, Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research Fellow at McGill
University and IRCAM
Alexandra Cárdenas, composer and improviser, Berlin
Nick Collins, Reader in Composition in the Department of Music, University of
Durham
Geoff Cox, Associate Professor, Department of Aesthetics and Communication and
Participatory IT Research Centre, Aarhus University
Palle Dahlstedt, Obel Professor of Art and Technology, Department of
Communication and Psychology, Aalborg University
Roger T. Dean, Research Professor of Sonic Communication at the MARCS
Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development, Western Sydney University
Alice Eldridge, Research Fellow in Digital Humanities/Digital Performance,
Department of Music, University of Sussex
Kristin Grace Erickson, Technical Coordinator, Digital Arts and New Media,
University of California Santa Cruz
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Contributors
Mark Fell, independent artist, Rotherham
(p. x) Rebecca Fiebrink, Lecturer, Department of Computing, Goldsmiths,
University of London
Jamie Forth, Lecturer, Department of Computing, Goldsmiths, University of London
Christopher Haworth, Lecturer in Music, University of Birmingham
Mileece I’Anson, Founder, Children of Wild, Los Angeles
David Kanaga, independent composer and designer, Oakland
Yuli Levtov, founder of Reactify, London
George E. Lewis, Edwin H. Case Professor of American Music, Columbia
University, New York
Thor Magnusson, Senior Lecturer in Music, Department of Music, University of
Sussex
Charles Matthews, composer and researcher, London
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Contributors
Kaffe Matthews, founder of Bicrophonic Research Institute, London
Alex McLean, postdoctoral researcher in Weaving as a Technical Mode of
Existence, Research Institute for the History of Science and Technology, Deutsches
Museum, Munich
Andrew J. Milne, Australian Research Council DECRA Fellow at the MARCS
Institute for Brain, Behaviour and Development, Western Sydney University
David Ogborn, Associate Professor, Communication Studies and Multimedia,
McMaster University
Morten Riis, postdoctoral researcher, School of Communication and Culture,
Aarhus University
Charles Roberts, Assistant Professor in the School of Interactive Games and Media
at the Rochester Institute of Technology
Julian Rohrhuber, Professor for Music Informatics and Media Theory, Robert
Schumann School of Music and Media, Düsseldorf
Carla Scaletti, President and Founder of Symbolic Sound Corporation
Jan C. Schacher, Research Associate, Institute for Computer Music and Sound
Technology, Zürcher Hochschule der Künste
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Contributors
Margaret Schedel, Assistant Professor, Music Department, Stony Brook University
Mary Simoni, Dean of the School of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences,
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Laurie Spiegel, composer, New York
(p. xi) Graham Wakefield, Assistant Professor, School of the Arts, Media,
Performance and Design, York University
Renate Wieser, Researcher in Media Aesthetics, University of Paderborn
Geraint Wiggins, Professor of Computational Creativity, School of Electronic
Engineering and Computer Science, Queen Mary, University of London
(p. xii)
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Musical Algorithms as Tools, Languages, and Partners: A Perspective
Oxford Handbooks Online
Musical Algorithms as Tools, Languages, and Partners:

A Perspective

Alex McLean and Roger T. Dean
The Oxford Handbook of Algorithmic Music
Edited by Roger T. Dean and Alex McLean
Print Publication Date: Feb 2018 Subject: Music, Music Theory
Online Publication Date: Feb 2018 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190226992.013.24
Abstract and Keywords
This is an introductory chapter to The Oxford Handbook of Algorithmic Music, and the
practical, historical, philosophical, and cultural perspectives that it covers. This chapter
outlines the structure and scope of the book, provides some background and motivation
for its focus, covers points of terminology, and summarizes the development of the field in
the modern era. It then signposts the following chapters and relates them to one another
in terms of some of the key issues that are covered. As algorithmic music is a fast-
developing field, the chapter then outlines contemporary directions in order to look
forward to the next steps in both research and practice. The chapter concludes with
further signposting, this time to literature which may be read in partnership with the
present volume.
Keywords: algorithmic music, terminology, review

1.1 Introduction
(p. 3)
IN this chapter we introduce the landscape of algorithmic music, and point to some of its
burning issues and future possibilities. We also use the chapter to provide some guidance
as to how we have organized the book, and where major topics are discussed: we
summarize the structure in the next paragraph, and comments on individual articles in
the book are made throughout this chapter. The book has been arranged to provide
contrasting views on core topics, on the one hand, from theorists and analysts and, on the
other, from practitioners. Happily for us, in many cases our authors pursue both types of
involvement. But we have asked another group of authors (who contribute the
Perspectives on Practice chapters) to foreground their own thoughts about algorithmic
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Musical Algorithms as Tools, Languages, and Partners: A Perspective
music and how they make it. At the same time, we have encouraged all authors to give
specific musical examples of what they discuss, and to feel free to mention their own
work.
Our volume brings together a diverse range of authors to explore algorithmic music in
the large. We engage with meta- and post-human perspectives—pointing to the question
of what new musics are now being found through algorithmic means which humans could
not otherwise have made. In reciprocation with this, we also explore cultural aspects—
how is algorithmic music being assimilated back into human culture, and what is its
social function or meaning? Over the chapters we will gradually widen our scope, first
grounding the topic and introducing its terms by exploring its artefacts, philosophies, and
histories. We then survey the range (so far!) of technical (p. 4) approaches to composing
algorithmic music, and the metaphors used that seek to install those approaches in
human understanding. Then practical aspects are explored in some depth: the role of the
algorithm as co-performer, and in supporting musical coordination between human
performers. Finally, we explore wider cultural aspects, such as the role of algorithmic
music in society, education, and commerce.
Perspectives on Practice sections (PoPs) are interspersed throughout the book as short
interjections outside the main flow. But they provide prime value to the reader,
connecting issues in the text with direct reflections on musical activity. PoPs provide
introspection by authors on their own practice, as opposed to introductions to and
analysis of the field provided by the other chapters. Authorship of chapters and PoPs
divides roughly along the lines of researchers and practitioners, but not strictly; we
include some practitioners who are independent researchers amongst chapter authors,
and invite some respected researchers to reflect upon their practice. We have included
ourselves amongst the PoPs in the form of a joint article at the end of the book: amongst
other things, this serves to indicate why we came together to catalyse this volume
(supported by the encouragement and enthusiasm of our OUP editor, Norm Hirschy).
This brief introduction may seem quite episodic, even sometimes temporarily taking
surprising directions. But we hope it will sensitize readers to the wide range of topics to
be addressed, and that after reading the book they will be left with practical
understanding both of how algorithmic music is made and of what makes this activity
musical.

1.2 Background
An algorithm, essentially, is a finite sequence or structure of instructions, and we will
elaborate on this terminologically in the next section. We note here that our emphasis is
on algorithmic music-making, and on primarily digital computational approaches. The
histories of manual and analog algorithms (mainly addressed in this chapter and by
Collins in chapter 4), include experimental process music, from the 1960s in particular
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Musical Algorithms as Tools, Languages, and Partners: A Perspective
(by Brecht, Wolff, Glass, Stockhausen, and others), in which a piece was constructed from
a precise or vague process description. But they also include musical and musicological
theory (from Ancient Greece to Hiller, Ligeti, Xenakis, and beyond) and its algorithmic
embodiments, including musical style modelling (Cope, Ebcioğlu, and onwards).
Leigh Landy has elaborated the often useful distinction between note-based and sound-
based musics (Landy 2009). Note-based music involves a conception of discrete
sequences of events, largely capable of being described in symbols (such as score
notation), and most usually characterized in part by pitches: such music permits tonal,
harmonic, and rhythmic hierarchies. On the other hand, sound-based music puts more
emphasis on the spectral content of sounds, which may be slowly transforming, with
relatively fewer discrete events and little emphasis on pitch (and usually no spectral
hierarchy, but rather in-depth spectral organization). Sound-based music may also depend
(p. 5) less on rhythmic pattern than note-based. Using this framework, we can
summarize by saying that the book deals primarily with the process of creating tonal,
post-tonal and sound-based music, and any other forms of music in which innovative and
individual works can result from algorithmic approaches. We do not seek to provide
anything more than pointers to the major algorithmic composers of the period up to about
1990, since our emphasis is on process, methods, ideas, and developments. We put little
focus on work directed towards recreating earlier styles. Similarly, we try to distinguish
music which is mainly an overt fulfilment of the algorithm (which might be primarily of
academic interest) from that which can be musically creative. Nierhaus (2009) mentions
these issues, and considers that most approaches he discerns are primarily about
algorithmic ‘imitation’. He covers substantially this imitative or recreative aspect and
aspects concerning practical procedures. So we resurvey these aspects relatively briefly
but adequately, and with a different perspective: essentially, whether and how any
particular algorithmic approach might provide a path to music which is really new.
A related general question within or behind several chapters is: has there been any
evaluation of the algorithm and of its products? We argue this needs to be done both by
non-experts and by expert musicians, and that the field at large could usefully study
features present in both the most and the least favourably evaluated works. This relates
to the question of the relevance of algorithmic generation methods to perception and
cognition, and the argument that syntax is either not a relevant concept in much music or
it is a consistency created perhaps transiently, and in any case locally to a work.
We are now well placed in the development of algorithmic music to build upon the
technical and evaluative issues to discuss cultural issues. There are a great many
subcultures supporting the development of algorithmic music in diverse situations, from
the close rituals of performance to the mass-market activity of smartphone and tablet
‘apps’. We therefore round off the book with a section rich with viewpoints on the social
function and cultural value of algorithmic music; where we use algorithms to reach for
the post-human, how do cultures grow and adjust to bring the music back into the human
realm?
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