Ben Swift
22 May '19
can y’all keep a secret?
enough about me…
tell me about you
music, maths, computers: what’s the connection?
what are computer programs good at?
what would a song performed by a computer program sound like?
what is (pop) music?
activity: (low-tech musical instructions)
livecoding: (high-tech musical instructions)
music (n.)
a series of pitched “events” over time
catchy hooks
repetitive harmonic patterns (e.g. chord progressions)
processed/synthetic sounds (lots of computers involved in the production)
lots of patterns
but how do we express them?
what aspects of the music does it influence?
why is it important?
how do we measure it?
what aspects of the music does it influence?
why is it important?
how do we measure it?
what aspects of the music does it influence?
why is it important?
how do we measure it?
remember: music is a series of musical events
each event has a time, a pitch and a loudness
function f(x, y) takes two parameters/arguments and returns a result
e.g. f(x, y) = 8x + 2y
parameters are input, the function does something with the inputs to produce an output
arithmetic which “wraps around”
0, 1, 2, 0, 1, 2, 0, 1, 2, … instead of 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, …
the modulus can be any integer, e.g.
activity: musical instructions
split into pairs
I’ll tell one person (person A) the name of a song
person A will write down (in English) instructions for how to play the song (no conventional music notation allowed)
person B will read the instructions, “sing” them, and try to guess what the song is
remember: you have to describe the instruments, not the vocal track
what was the hardest part?
what was the easiest?
was it easier/harder than you expected?
how would you do it differently next time?
learn a new song (by ear!)
figure out how to turn it into code
find a bunch of sounds which sound (approximately) like the recording
lay down a vocal track (maybe)
make the whole process make sense to you guys
help me choose the song
be kind when I make mistakes
clap politely at the end (even if I flame out)
time (in beats), e.g. 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8
pitch (in MIDI note numbers), e.g. middle C as 60, C# as 61, etc.
loudness (0 is silent, 127 is super loud)
extempore is a programming language designed for musical livecoding (written Andrew Sorensen and me)
mplay is the key function:
;; pitch loud duration instrument
(mplay *midi-out* 60 80 (* .5 dur) 1)
don’t worry about the syntax, I’ll explain enough for you to follow along
pop music isn’t black magic, it’s a domain with lots of structure/patterns
we can write instructions which express those patterns
computers/code are really useful for modelling/exploring this stuff
this is not AI, either
in 2020 I’m starting an art+music+code extension program at the ANU
we’ll do stuff like this (and lots more)
if you’re interested, let me know 😊
🤔