janzen@pipa.DEC (Thomas E. J. LMO4/B5 279-5421 ECL Test) (06/11/85)
Re: machine improvisation Computer improvisation has been done live on stage at least by Automatic Composers or something like that in San Francisco when New Music America was there a few years ago. The different micros talked to each other over serial lines I think and intereacted, each doing something slightly random and the others also, but interacting. It was pretty awful, and they had a technical problem that made it worse. Anyway, there is certainly a potential in machine improvisation. I was very interested in it, but am too cheap to buy a computer and too lazy to build an industrial switch to run my 60-voice synth. Otherwise I would have tried it by now. I am not interested in pop or rock at all, so I could make improv rules for the machine that were easy for it to implement, rather than try to implement ancient human rules of harmony. I am interestd in live on stage improvisation. Oh yeah, I did make a computer improvise a little, using rules similar to Hiller's in Illiac suite. Hiller's was a machine-as-composer program from the fifties. Tom Janzen DEC Marlboro MA A New Music America Reject Posted: Tue 11-Jun-1985 08:52 EST To: @SYNTH