AT THE EDGE
Suite for Cello solo
This is the foreword, introduction and short analysis parts of my recent composition.
FOREWORD
I
travelled from Illinois to San Fransisco to write a computer generated music in
1990 Summer Course of Stanford University's CCRMA lab.
Piece for Computer and 4 Trombones
Its subtitle is 'Death on the
Border'. It is so amazing that now I have
similar possibilities on my table at my
Home.
'At the Edge' is the sitution of human
being in the world of 2017. We are at
the edge of enormous progress in science and technology, progress that we
cannot even imagine.
The vast majority is only being swayed
by the progresses that are happening and sometimes getting easily
manipulated.
A moral and social response has to be
developed with a special emphasis on education and equal opportunity.
I tried to give a sense of this human
situation by the cello performer's unavoidable difficulty while playing 'At the
Edge'.
INTRODUCTION
This piece is an open-ended
self discussion of what can be done as a computer aided music work.
The computer generated parts
are sometimes mixed with manually composed sections. Sometimes this mixture is done homogenuously,
sometimes heterogenuously. This is achieved by manually
changing/retouching computer generated parts.
The term 'Computer generated'
should not mislead you. Computer
generation is based on composition algorithms which are manually programmed so
that monotenuous effects are avoided unless it is required to increase tension.
For example an array of 5
notes A, Gb, E, F, C# may be put into an
array and a random number between 0 and 4 generated. This produces a real randomness effect. A note may be repeated
a number of times by
chance. This has to be changed, so that a
pitch that has been played once may not be played for a couple of throws of the
dice. This is the random repetition depth. An artificially beautiful randomness appears
if repetition depth is increased. The depth decrease helps to increase tension
where needed.
It is possible to
imitate/approach human manual composition by deliberately changing and manipulating
algorithms. For example, you can put
artificial randomness in not only pitch but also
rhytm values, etc.
It is also possible to imitate
computer generation by hand but this effort is also limited by the sheer volume
of the computer generation.
The computer generation may
also be used just to produce the base line like a carpet veawer using a white
layer of threads to tie the color nodes on.
Uniqueness and mutation are
issues that has to be pondered upon in this approach to music composition.
ANALYSIS
Just
a few words about the things I was faced with during the composition process of
'AT the Edge':
What
is unique? What is mutated?
Something
unique can be differed from others.
Something
unique has a unity.
Something
unique has an identity.
A
truly unique thing is something that can not be mutated.
A
truly unique thing exists on its own, with nothing similar to or copied from
it.
On
the other hand, a mutation is not unique in the presence of an original.
By
definition, sound/music is an episodic event queue of frequency, duration.
A
melody becomes unique when it is heard for the first time provided that it has
a unity. If a change to the melody mutates the melody but does not effect its percieved
identity it is a non-destructive mutation.
Randomly
generated mutations may be limited not to cause (or to cause) destruction of
the unique melody.
What
happens in the case of a random or limited alleatory melody? Notes that are not generated according to the
fundamental algorithm may destruct the limited alleatory melody depending on a
definite condition. This condition may
change according to the character of the original limited alleatory melody.
A
limited alleatory melody may be mixed with another melody. For ex. introduction of constant pitches with
constantly seperated instances, may give a unique perception of an atomic
character. Mixing of limited alleatory
with a unique melody breaks the randomness, rather balances its effect.
