Generative art and music

This might be hard to explain, but can anyone suggest examples of art of music that somehow uses itself as a reflex?

For a while I was thinking about this, and seeing how possible it was to do this.

e.g. When most people write a song, they'll possibly find a key and use the chords to come up with a structure. Then they add lyrics and a melody. Hopefully the mood of the song will suit the lyrics etc.

But what if each note, each chord and each lyric were intentionally designed to correspond with each other? An obvious example of this would be that the word "down" in a lyric would correspond with a descending note or chord. This happens all the time, usually subconsciously of course.

What if the first chord in a song, or the first word in a piece of text were the generative trigger for the rest of the work, with everything else being generated from it in a kind of "big bang" way?

The only real example I can think of is Autechre's work with Max/MSP where apparently they will enter a number of parameters and triggers into their boxes of tricks, and these will generate patterns and sequences automatically. e.g. A bass drum sound will trigger a sequence of notes which change order according to the gain reduction obtained from the echo of the bassdrum itself, which in turn will generate another sound which will also set off a sequence of sounds correlating to each other... phew!

But does anyone else try this, y'know, without highly evolved sequencers etc?

Iannis Xenakis.

http://www.d.umn.edu/~jrubin1/JHR%20Alea%202.htm

^^^^^ you need to read up on him

Iannis Xenakis: Composer, Architect, Visionary explores the fundamental role of drawing in the work of Greek avant-garde composer Iannis Xenakis (1922–2001). A leading figure in twentieth century music, Xenakis was trained as a civil engineer, then became an architect and developed revolutionary designs while working with Le Corbusier. Comprised of nearly 100 documents created between 1953 and 1984, this is the first North American exhibition dedicated to Xenakis’s original works on paper. Included are rarely-seen hand-rendered scores, architectural drawings, conceptual renderings, pre-compositional sketches, and graphic scores. Iannis Xenakis: Composer, Architect, Visionary is co-curated by Xenakis scholar Sharon Kanach and critic Carey Lovelace and will travel to the Canadian Centre for Architecture (June 17 – October 17, 2010) and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (November 7, 2010 – February 13, 2011).

http://www.drawingcenter.org/exh_current.cfm?exh=662

(This website has full, high quality audio samples & more info)

I think it is out-of-print now, but if you can track down Iannis Xenakis by Nouritza Matossian at your local library, give it a go. Fascinating read.

Dunno if you live in or near NYC but there will be a big free concert of Xenakis' percussion works on June 21st at the lake in central park.

Other examples: Frippertronics (soloing over/in response to guitar loops), some recent Eno, and Owada (http://www.stalk.net/piano/508T.htm).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musikalisches_W%C3%BCrfelspiel

But what if each note, each chord and each lyric were intentionally designed to correspond with each other? An obvious example of this would be that the word "down" in a lyric would correspond with a descending note or chord. This happens all the time, usually subconsciously of course.

This is very common and taken pretty far in Monteverdi's madrigals. Other Baroque composers were fond of this kind of word-painting technique as well.

Monolake

'What if the first chord in a song, or the first word in a piece of text were the generative trigger for the rest of the work, with everything else being generated from it in a kind of "big bang" way?'

Do you want to make something like this? I don't know how musical it would sound but you could:
1. encode text as number
2. feed number as seed to a cellular automata (like in Game of Life)
3. have each filled-in cell from the grid trigger a sample.

To an extent, this is def what I mean. Thanks all.

I guess this is taking the idea of generation and symbolism to an extreme in a way. The idea that there is significance in every element of a composition - a sculpture where every line and curve has some sort of meaning, but without each part the structure would not work. Or a piece of text, for example a story where not a line or word is wasted - everything affects everything else etc...

I guess in most novels the author won't usually describe what the protagonist had for tea unless this description tells you about the character or moves the plot along. In the same way, could a composition eschew anything that was superfluous to the other elements of the track?

I remember thinking along these lines when I was just getting into Talking Heads. At the time, I kind of liked to think that the band's music was so full of cryptic meaning that they had purposefully placed information in the drum patterns, in the basslines and in the lyrics. Of course this isn't really true and it's more likely they just had a jam while Byrne yammered over the top, but this is how I liked to treat it. Other times, I read about Stockhausen who will use music to illustrate concepts (I think I read once about a piece that was supposed to represent France, where he played upon the idea of ducks quacking La Marseilles or something similarly skewed)...

A lot of classical music will tell stories without words - each instrument representing a character or event - think Peter & the Wolf or something.

As I say, the concept isn't exactly full formed in my mind (it gives me a headache to think about), yet it has been something I have wondered about for some time - the idea of taking generative and symbolic music to its logical conclusion, somehow.

"Life" based sequencers already exist, there's even one which is an iphone app.

Also, have a look at http://www.intermorphic.com/ - they're kind of experts at this stuff, they wrote the Koan software which Eno used for his early generative stuff.

Cage also covered some of this ground though, a lot of his aleatoric works were generative works seeded from chance operations.

Bit of an obvious one maybe, but worth checking out.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_am_sitting_in_a_room

Eno, "Discreet Music"

David Behrman - Leapday Night, On the Other Ocean

Robert Ashley - In Sarah Mencken, Christ and Beethoven there were men and women.

what's that CSI Who song with the intro that's generated from Pete Townshend's birthday?

Lyrics and melody designed to correspond with eachother.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6EfcWxPeQw

'Johnny could only sing one note and the note he sang was this:
AAAAHHHHHHHHHH'

'Johnny One-Note' which I have in a version by Blossom Dearie