How to compose music with a recipe (Arvo Pärt, Xenakis and others) 

"Woah, this video is nearly as trippy as Ben Levin's recent stuff..." *Ben Levin shows up* *head explodes*

This is a pedagogical masterpiece! I knew about like 2 algorithmic approaches before, but now I know about a bunch, but more importantly I am excited to use them in my music! Thank you for your devotion to your art, it’s really inspiring!

Editing is like Terry Gilliam mixed with Wario Ware. Weirdly nostalgic.

"If we change the sound to marimba and start overlapping we quickly get" A ringtone?

Wow you really surpassed yourself for the editing in this one, love the illustrations !

Numberphile and the OEIS are two things I didn't expect to appear in a David Bruce video.

Brilliant video and great visuals too! Nicely done 🤖

Can I please get that machine as a guest on my channel? I just love it :) haha

The Planets AI version killed me 😂😂

Many musical conventions that have been used for centuries are algorithms in some sense. For instance, the sonata form is a recipe that says something like "Write a theme A and a theme B; Start with the exposition of A, then the exposition of B, then a section of increasing tension that plays with both A and B, then a re-exposition of A, etc.". Doesn't that sound like an algorithm?

Wow that ending was amazing

omg three of my favorite youtube channels in one video -numberphile -ben levin -david bruce rock on!

I feel like I'm watching Monty Python and I love it!

This is really inspirational. It both highlights the importance of some sort of algorithmic approach to composition, but also recognises that a more formulaic approach to writing music doesn't necessarily mean that either the music will be banal, or, at the other end of the spectrum, esoteric and impenetrable. You show that with your lush string piece! Also, the editing on this is amazing. It must have taken forever!

This is my favourite video on RU-vid.

Very insightful! One of my favourite electronic music composers has recently said that even if they could, they wouldn't share the software they created themselves to help them make music, because even though algorithms definitely play a role, they still need the composer to play them. The software, the algorithms don't do anything without the player. They're all just instruments! It is up to us to make use of them in meaningful ways. And that is ultimately deeply tied to being human.

Wow! Someone finally mentioned Norgard! I’ve been mentioning the infinity series to several of the folks who do music theory videos, but no dice😝

Thank you for making this video. I'm nobody important, but I do have a few easy tips which I hope you will consider are just one more reason for people to come here and give you a higher view count: 1) Modern composers now have so many technical resources available that what stands to distinguish them most (as not redundant with other composers) are things like their aesthetic goals and their capacity for meaningful judgment of their options; things that algorithms, alone, still don't provide all that well to listeners. Focusing on clever algorithms will tend to make a composer sound like other composers who focus on clever algorithms. But starting with way too much algorithmic data and gradually paring it down to preferred components in a preferred order will allow the composer's personality and sense of musical value to come through. Is a modern composer cheating by not using pure algorithms? Shhh... I won't tell if you don't. 2) A trick I have used to get around duplicating other people's algorithms is to take readings from a track pad and combine them with pseudorandom numbers under modulo reduction. Just wiggling your finger around on a track pad can really generate a lot of data that's not analytically reducible other than by imposing what are probably false mathermatical patterns. I'm aware of at least one composer who has used hand-sweeps of a radio telescope across the sky to pick up data. It's unlikely that what happened out there thousands of years ago relates in any discernable way to arbitrary hand motions, so the results should be pretty original in terms of being reliably random. Again, if you're an insightful editor, at least some listeners might appreciate your editorial insight as expressed in musical composition. 3) I don't think Guido's use of vowels was quite optimum. For a language like Latin, Spanish, or Esperanto (and more recently Hindi and Marathi), I prefer the idea of using 2 different (though perhaps related) arrays of 5 pitches; one for stressed syllables and one for unstressed syallables. My preferred order of these vowels in ascending pitch is U,O,A,E,I. Look at the mechanics of vocalization and maybe you'll see why. The reverse order has some merit, too, if your goal is more narrative than musical. Similarly, English as phonetically transcribed, has about an octave's worth of vowels. I default shwa to the middle of the range and spread out the others by basically drawing the shortest possible line through them on a vowel space diagram. This should work about the same with languages other than Swedish, at least. 4) The cheapest cheat code to greater melodic interest is simply to increase the proportional frequency of figures that look like "escape tones". For a complete explanation of why this works, please read (if you dare) The Analysis and Cognition of Basic Melodic Structures by Eugene O Narmour, and also this thing. www.jstor.org/stable/40285540?seq=1 The short way to combine these things is to bias melodies toward gradual escalation of nonclosure. Slowly escalating nonclosure basically makes people keep paying passive attention because it's an intensity parameter. As woodwind exercises to help condition me to improvise better, I have constructed some signatureless diatonic contours that, in a brutally algorithmic way, elaborate an "escape tone" figure with successive elaborations of similar figures; they look vaguely like fractals that expand to the right. I have no proof that this is helping me, but my subjective impression is that it is helping.

music is much more rational than artistic because most times your rational will mold what you believe being artistic. That's the beauty of music, see: it doesn't make sense because you feel, you feel because it makes sense. And that's how stuff gets artistic.

I enjoy how much you enjoy editing this Maestro Bruce.

Just wanted to say thank you for your excellent video essays, Bruce. You are my hero.

This is an incredible presentation of these ideas! Eternally grateful that you're on YT and not trapped in an academy somewhere.

It would be awesome to have a 2nd part of this video! This was great! Thank you 🙏🏼

Love the evolution of your video style. Also thank you for the Ben Levin cameo. That guy makes me smile.

Visuals were your best yet! It's very inspiring to see you really inhabit a video style of your own

The animation in this one is very charming. Great work as usual!

I love the humor in your videos. Always funny but still very informative and educational! Keep up the great work!

Xenakis is my most favorite composer. I’m so happy that you talked about him. I love all of his works. Thanks for this.

As always: Your best video yet. The connex to Numberphile and the many versions of "algorithmic music" while telling a story was masterful. And a good Steve Reich slam never hurts!

This was incredibly well made. Thanks, Bruce! Also, as a percussionist, I REALLY enjoyed your video featuring Gene’s work. Keep it up!!! Will be sharing this

Outstanding work and point of view, as always ! It’s really refreshing to see a modern composer not diabolizing algorithms, and reminding us they’ve been around for milleniums. Bravo David !

I'm only halfway through the video, but I had to jump down to write how much I love the editing in this, and your interaction with it! It sprouts with creativity and charm, which shows that you're not really limited by your skills - or rather you perfectly worked within those limits. It's brilliant.

Fascinating! Thank you very much for this.

Love this vid estpecially! Your nerdiest ones are the BEST!

Love the Gilliam-esqe...ness of your videos. Really adds an extra level to the already impressive depth of research and accessible presentation.

Really fine work David

Another brilliant video, now watching for the second time! :D

Your videos are so great. Thanks a lot!

This is one of your best videos! Back in the '90s I had a computer program called Fractal Music. You entered mathematical variables and the program would generate an unending musical piece. Fascinating stuff!

David's been upping his editing game during the lockdown!

Possibly the best video in YT that taps into the zeitgeist? Seriously, well done Mr. David Bruce. This video is a testament

Truly amazing video!

Thanks for a great intro to this fascinating topic.

Wow, amazing video. As someone that's deeply interested in computer science, maths and classical music, this video really let me know more on "Algorithmic music" from a professional composer's perspective.

Really excellent video, thanks for all the inspiration & education :)

Why only 198000 followers! This is pure gold! Learned so much!

Thank you for elaborating on the topic

What would happen if we threw in a bunch of Jacob Collier's music into one of those computer algorithms and see what they come up with?

Speaking of algorithms, I've never found the purely random ones like using the digits of PI to be all that interesting as a basis to create music. I definitely dig using highly structured sequences as compositional tools. Norgard's "infinity series" reminds me of another highly ordered set of sequences: superpermutations.

thank you David, fascinating !

Quite interesting - thought provoking, actually. Thanks so much for posting this.

Amazing visuals on this one!

As a software engineer and musician, bless you for covering this topic!!

tremendous video - hats off to you. subscribed and thanks!

Absolutely brilliant video, even for your standarts. Bravo

The Guido vowel thing is something I’m going to put in my back pocket for later, thanks.

The editing in this video is so good!

People need to talk about Avro Pärt more, and it’s awesome to see you mentioning him

Excellent video, very inspiring!

Great video! Algorithms are frustratingly misunderstood these days and this is one of the most accurate and informative pieces on them from a non computer scientist.

wowww great info and video, thanks man ❤

Wow, I was just looking at your page the other day rewatching some of my favorites. I was thinking, I hope he does something soon. Lol Great video love your stuff.

Dear Bruce. This is really an excellent video! Great. I think AI or algorithms can be used to get you to other directions you didn't even thought of. Like you said at the end of the video. I saw once a documentary in German TV about a painter who used AI like a assistant, who gives him new ideas. Looking forward to the next video. Very good and inspiring channel you have. Stay healthy, Michael

Came here from tantacrul video about corporate music. Lovely channel. Stay safe dude.

Speaking of composing and inspiration: 1:36 I used to go for walks in the forest with my electric guitar and that exact same little marshall amp on the shelf, just to our left of Davids ear.

I was gonna say that the editing on this video is amazing, then noticed Ben Levin, and that explains everything

Fantastic video/channel!

Wonderful, finally an unbiased look at algorithmic music, nicely done 👍

just heard some of your stuff on R3, David... great! Also love this film...especially the 'plate spinning' DJ

Great video. Keep up the awesome work!

This is great! Thank you!

Love it! Working with limitations set creativity free

omg, a david bruce upload and Tantacrul in the same day!! Today is a good day

This editing is amazing

Really great video dude! love the editing and the animations in this one and your other videos lately. Would recommend giving Autechre a go if the idea of algorhitmic (electronic) music interests you.

Garry Kasparov's "Deep Thinking" is a great book about AI vs Human relations. The penultimate chapter is called "human plus machine" that discusses how the intelligence, and perfection of computers PLUS the creativity of humans is the greatest actor we can get. In chess, this manifests in humans making strategies, battle plans, taking enemy weaknesses into account, etc, with the machine giving them perfect predictions on the chances of each strategy succeeding, so the intelligence and creativity can be combined. I imagine that the way that composers might use this is with some kind of lick generator, so for example, if I'm starting on C and need to get to Bb an octave below, the machine could calculate the most satisfying to the ear possible way to get down there in let's say a bar, and from there, the composer could choose weather C-Bb was the best choice at all, or weather this 'perfect' lick could be changed to express something specific. This could also be done with cords, so say if I have two very, non-matching cords the AI could generate a path to that make them fit, so the composer can focus on more important things. This is pretty similar to what many of us do already, I, for instance,have a folder of drum fills or solos so when I have a vague idea of what I want I can look through what I've already made. I think the best place for AI is in this 'human plus machine' dichotomy the same way that no chess machine will ever be able to think about metagame or tilting the opponent, AI will never be able to capture experience, or put into notes nuanced emotions, it can, however, be a great resource for 'checking' yourself, meaning all the calculations a chess player is already making, such as 'are there any holes in my defence' can be answered with 100% accuracy and 0% bias, or in other words, doing the automatic calculations humans already do but without objective error. And composing already has similar automatic calculations, I don't have to think about how to resolve, I automatically default to V - I. Or in other words: AI is better at the science of music theory, but humans are better at the art of music. and together they'll probably be pretty cool

the editing recently has been incredible

Thank you for this wonderful video really enjoyed it ^_^

David, your Xenakis-algorithm string chords are gorgeous! I was trying to figure out what that piece was when it first came up! :)

Wonderful video. Very interesting indeed.

Brilliant! Thanks

It was pretty cool to see Ben doing music in that style.

Awesome video!

Glad to see you discussing Per Norgard. What I find interesting about his use of the infinity series is that one can apply the basic formula to different types of pitch collections, microtonal ,chromatic or tonal in order to get different results. While Voyage Into the Golden Screen is good as an introduction to his infinity series pieces, I believe it was his first piece to do so and at times it gets too repetitious for me. I find the his second and third symphonies and the harp concerto Gennem Torne more rewarding to listen to.

i love the visuals!

Brilliant!

In my 25+ year programming career, I've lived through (and worked in) several AI fads. They have come and they have gone. Composers don't have to worry, except that you may be writing less soulless corporate music. The fact is that AI still works best when it is used as an assistant or adjunct to human judgment, and for the foreseeable future, cannot be trusted as replacement for it.

I love the ending!

Thanks for making this video! As a computer science + music major, almost nobody seems to be aware how far along algorithmic composition has come, and how long it's been in development! Although, it's a bit funny to study. At my uni's library, algo music books were either punchcards from MUSIC V "scripts", or David Cope's works, or some isolated paper. Now that AI/ML has hit the mainstream, I can't wait for algo music to evolve (ha) in the next decade or so.

That is so awesome.

In the late 80s Steve Coleman who was guest artist at a school I was loosely connected to told me that he'd created a program to improvise jazz based on his own musical predilections. He said it worked well enough for famous bassist composer David Holland to tell him to get rid of it.

Great video!

Loved the Ben Levin cameo!

love all the fun animations haha

this is a really cool video !!

brilliant editing here

It's worth mentioning that counterpoint has many rules which, while still allowing freedom of the composer, are quite amenable to algorithms. There was a paper where the authors wrote a program to apply the rules of first species counterpoint to show the composer which notes were allowed according to the rules given the notes already chosen.

Nice video, really my sort of thing, this. I'm doing a PhD working with AI methods and also love composing in my spare time, hopefully when I have more free time I can do some of my own experimenting and combine the two!

wonderful editing

Very nice! Not gonna lie, Imma use these techniques right away.