DynamiCell@aol.com wrote:
: Did everyone know that ep7 was all programmed sound fractals (I find that
: INCREDIBLE, being a fellow musician and programmer). The amount of
: programming necessary to create organic sounding music. Basically ...
: well... They spent a lot of time programming that amazing work of sound art.
: You really need to listen to each part individually through the entire CD
: (drums, synth, random noises, dynamical changes) to understand it. There are
: so many little errors and blips in the background that are almost invisible
: to the untrained eye ear. The errors that they placed in the algorithm to
: make it sound more natural ... well I could talk forever about all of this...
I find it incredible, too -- in the original sense of that word: "not
credible." What's your source on this?
Although I'd not be too surprised to find that AE used some fractal
techniques in creating some of the sequences they used for some of
their tracks, there is a lot more to making "organic sounding music"
than adding some "errors" to a fractal algorithm. The timbres and
overall structure of the EP7 tracks have nothing to do with fractals;
neither do the basic melodies and harmonies. These are cut from the
same cloth as LP5, Cichlisuite, and to a lesser extent Chiastic Slide.
Fractals can be an aid to composition (they are much more useful than
just raw random sequences, IMHO), but deriving a rhythmic or melodic
sequence from them is hardly equivalent to constructing an entire
track that way. However, they can create a texture around which the
rest of the track is built, and some of AE's tracks sound like they
might have been done that way.
Music theorists have spent a lot of time and paper looking for fractal
patterns in music, and like theories based on Markov chains, generative
grammars, and other such mathematics, there are definitely things that
can be found using such techniques. And some musicians use algorithms
based on these theories (and others, such as neural nets, fuzzy logic,
etc) to create music. I've yet to hear a composition based solely on
such algorithms that was musically satisfying, but it is quite possible
to use them as a component of a piece and create satisfying music. And,
in fact, it would surprise me if AE *wasn't* using algorithmic composition
in some of their tracks. But as the sole basis of a track, much less a
60+ minute EP -- I really, really doubt it.
-Ed
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