[net.music.synth] Improvisational Algorithms and MIDI

joe@wateng.UUCP (Joe Morrison) (06/06/85)

There are some fascinating possibilities for using computers with
MIDI.  Here is one interesting possibility (hypothetical): 

The computer would read the musician's MIDI output, generate some sort
of improvisation, and play the result back to the musician through
MIDI, maybe in realtime. Using a system like this the musician could
record a chord progression into a sequencer and have a jam with his
computer...

I am *not* proposing a new musical art form, and I am not interested in
"you-are-taking-the-humanity-out-of-music" flames; this is just an
idea I had and I thought I would throw it out for discussion...

Does anyone have any thoughts on the technical aspects of this? For
starters, perhaps it would be necessary to design a "high level"
language for describing the chord progressions...

A further thought; perhaps it would be useful to soften the distinction
between chords and improvisation; groups like Weather Report don't make
this distinction and their music works very well.

Yours interestedly,
-- 
	Joe Morrison
Systems on Silicon Group @ University of Waterloo

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