My Procedurally Generated Music Is Awful
I like this quote “Don’t try to procedurally generate something that you can’t already create”.<p>I’ve been actively making music full time for a good 15 years now. I work as a writer&#x2F;producer and despite all of my experience and theoretical understanding I’d probably be hard pressed to come up with a way to algorithmically describe my musical instincts in a way that generates satisfying music.<p>I think a large part of the trouble comes from the notion that most music requires a certain degree of subversion of expectation. And not randomly selected subversions either. Deliberate choices that feel meaningful. I could spend a lot of time defining one melodic phrase and immediately need to tweak the rule for the second half or a reharmonization. Not to mention rhythmic cadences and groove.<p>I’ve been doing a deep dive on Autechre recently and am revisiting interviews where they hint at their process. The duo is notorious for using self-built tools that algorithmically generate the sounds, texture, and rhythms. These programs are not expected to run independently or generate great music on their own. They are actively guided and performed by the band as they jam and compose. In this way it’s more of an augmentation of their will that allows them to create such rhythmically dense compositions.<p>In re-reading these interviews what I found interesting is that for them the act of building the program is one and the same with the act of composition. They’re defining the parameters, limits, and characteristics of a composition and then using their judgement to steer and flex the sonic structures that they’ve built up.<p>When it comes to generative music, I think they’ve got the right attitude in not expecting the software to do the heavy lifting. It’s instead treated as an extension of their performance.