Ecology No. 3

Sound. Score.

I've finished overhauling my software, which can now generate sound files composed of (nearly) arbitrary numbers of sine waves. This is my first composition using the new version of the software (though, ironically and unexpectedly, I could have composed and synthesized it using the old version). The music is generated by cellular automata altered by random mutations and subject to certain inhibitory factors, and the final sound is the synthesis of 28,880 individual sine waves. Note that the score is larger than usual - 1,350x3,000 pixels - so one can zoom in to see more detail.

Memory Problems

My electronic music has become complex enough that I need to make some changes to the way that my software handles memory. More specifically, I need to store large amounts of intermediate data (that is, data generated after some initial computation but before the computation of the final waveform) on the hard disk rather than in memory. I had to make a similar change once before, and I'm sure that I'll have to make others as this project becomes more sophisticated.

This software update will probably take a few days of programming. In the meantime, here's a Study for Ecology No. 3. I won't be able to complete the full Ecology No. 3 until I alter my software. Nonetheless, even this Study is the synthesis of over half a million individual quasi-sinusodial waveforms.

Ecology No. 2: Walls

Sound. Score. I've also renamed my previous composition from "Trees and Seeds" to "Ecology No. 1: Trees and Seeds".

I've been thinking further along the lines of the algorithmic organicism described in my last post, and I've begun to conceptualize some of my compositions as sonic ecologies. Though the individual behavior of the automata (which are analogous to organisms) in these ecologies varies greatly, the macroscopic form of the ecologies is governed by the same two general principles of reproduction and inhibition. The automata reproduce themselves according to certain rules, but I generally try to inhibit this reproduction in ways that produce interesting (and even narrative) soundscapes. My composition Walls, on the other hand, is a case of uninhibited growth: its automata are allowed to reproduce without constraint, and the result is chaos.

Ecology No. 1: Trees and Seeds

The title of this composition is "Ecology No. 1: Trees and Seeds". Sound. Score.

My fiancée Chelsea has quite rightly been on my case because I don't include much detail in these posts, so I'll write a few more words than usual on this latest work. One of the principles that guided me in its creation is complete organicism - that is, I wanted to specify a limited set of initial conditions, initialize an algorithm (or an "automaton", in the language of my software), and then simply let the automaton take its course without any other intervention. The behaviors of the two types of automata present in this composition remind me of trees (the green structures) and seeds (the red structures), so the title combines these personal associations with the organicism that I was trying to achieve.

So how, specifically, do these two classes of automata behave and interact with each other? Well, the trees usually hover around a fundamental frequency and venture quasi-randomly into the overtones of that frequency. When they "grow" to a certain overtone "height", the trees release seeds. These seeds then fall to a frequency approximately equal to the fundamental of their parent tree and then grow into new trees. The process repeats. Each tree may generate a more-or-less unlimited number of seeds and child trees. Some questions that I had to grapple with during the composition of Trees and Seeds include: How can this process be inhibited so that it does not result in runaway growth? How should a tree behave after it generates a seed so that it does not immediately generate ten more seeds and lead to a confusion of sound? How can I relate the sound of a seed to the sound of a tree? What kinds of initial conditions can I specify, and what are their effects? How can I create some sort of narrative through what is a more-or-less random process? I won't address these questions here, but they are representative of concerns inherent in algorithmic art.

Automatic Prélude No. 3

Sorry it's been so long since my last post. This blog is still alive, and I intend to keep composing and posting electronic music. Here are the sound and score of my Automatic Prélude No. 3.