[comp.music] 1/f

rreid@esquire.UUCP ( r l reid ) (04/12/90)

In article <1990Apr9.151958.26859@ncsuvx.ncsu.edu> george@shumv1.ncsu.edu (George Browning) writes:
>music.  Voss says "One of my exciting discoveries was that almost all
>musical melodies also mimic 1/f noise."  He gives some pictures and

The thing to be careful about is that the melodies mimic 1/f
noise, not vice versa.  I've got a 1/f program that cranks out
endless (if you want) 1/f melodies, with some nice parameters
(like "swing factor").  It's pleasent enough for a while,
but eventually you find that you are going nowhere.  Like,
where's the cadence?

What it is GREAT for is motive generation, if you are feeling uninspired
one fine day and you MUST get a jingle together by 5 pm.  In that
case, crank 'er up, and listen for a lovely catchy little
phrase to come by.  Then you can pick that out, and start doing
all the normal development kinds of things to it.

The Voss algorithm is a lot of fun to play with and you can get all kinds
of interesting things started with it.  To make music, you'll
have to take the output and work with it further.

I can post a description of the algorithm is there is enough
interest.

	       Ro
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