A (brief?) return to music composition

My computer program currently provides each note on the keyboard--each note of the input melody--with exactly one unique chord. I have, however, found a way to get a variety of chords for each key, so I will be applying that principle to get more variation in my music soon. It will improve the situation nicely.

My latest and greatest efforts. I'm really getting to the heart of music now.

32 minutes ago, Polaris said:

My latest and greatest efforts

For me this one is interesting as they are in major thirds like an organ.

33 minutes ago, Polaris said:

I'm really getting to the heart of music now.

For you, what is the heart of music? I'm curious on your thoughts.

Henry

32 minutes ago, Henry Ng Tsz Kiu said:

For me this one is interesting as they are in major thirds like an organ.

For you, what is the heart of music? I'm curious on your thoughts.

Henry

 

The heart of music and of all art is counterpoint, from which harmony arises.

35 minutes ago, Henry Ng Tsz Kiu said:

For me this one is interesting as they are in major thirds like an organ.

For you, what is the heart of music? I'm curious on your thoughts.

Henry

 

The major third thing is a consequence of laziness on my part. If I want to vary the chords a bit more, I have to enter the chord types by hand for every single note. It's a bit tedious. So I chose to take the easy path for now and go with all the same chord types throughout the piece. It's amazing that it still sounds good (at least to me) in spite of that immense limitation.

I just realized that the song is an octave too high. Not a huge deal, but it would sound better transposed down. 

Another thing I realized: whether the chords are major or minor is actually determined by the input melody's tessitura. There are a few minor chords in the song I posted above, and it's because the melody entered the proper range.

By the way, here's the octave-corrected version of the song I previously posted. It might interest you to learn that part of what I was attempting to do with this piece was write a kind of fugue. How? By having the input melody repeat the a certain motif at various, often wildly different pitch ranges. Whether it worked or not is debatable, but it was a worthwhile attempt. Also, on a side note, I learned with this pieces that getting the melody too far out of middle range results in an unclear sound. So in the future, I'm probably going to stick close to the middle octave when writing the input melody, or at least dip into other octaves only relatively briefly.

There is a setting in my program that controls both the chord type and its level of dissonance. I had accidentally set this to slight dissonance for the previously posted song. So here's the same input melody, this time in a minor key. The next thing I'm going to do is render the same input melody with a variety of chord types instead of endless minor chords. 

Until now, I had only used one type of chord in my compositions using the program I developed. Here is a very short example of using dissonance and varied chord varieties. The next thing I'm going to do is apply the same principle to a longer song.

5 hours ago, Polaris said:

It might interest you to learn that part of what I was attempting to do with this piece was write a kind of fugue. ... Whether it worked or not is debatable, but it was a worthwhile attempt.

I wonder if you're aware that today's A.I. tools are already capable of creating contrapuntal works that give imo much better results than what you've presented here.  The biggest drawback, as you mentioned is that your program only doubles the given melody in similar motion.  Usually, counterpoint involves independent voices and one of the first and most important rules in creating independent voices is that you shouldn't double them for any substantial length of time at the same interval.  Even 3rds and 6ths doubled for too long stop being independent and blend together into just one voice.  Counterpoint would also involve the different voices moving in different independent rhythmic values and in contrary, oblique and similar motion.  There is nothing contrapuntal about what you've presented in my opinion.

Another issue is that your renditions are really grating on the ears and hard to listen to.  Why do your renditions use sawtooth-wave synthesizer sounds?  Even if you subscribe to the moog-synthesizer invention style of music, there are more palatable sounds available to you that you don't seem to use.  I honestly haven't listened to any of your recent submissions all the way through because of this.  I just can't listen to something that grating for it's full duration - and I don't understand how anyone could find anything about this beautiful.  I hope you don't take this as a damning criticism, I'm just trying to describe my listening experience and put my reaction into words.  Thanks for sharing though.

I've been studying dissonance for the past hour, and I've come up with a theory that I think explains it very well. Here's a melodic fragment input into my program, where my theories are used to its advantage:

5 minutes ago, PeterthePapercomPoser said:

I wonder if you're aware that today's A.I. tools are already capable of creating contrapuntal works that give imo much better results than what you've presented here.  The biggest drawback, as you mentioned is that your program only doubles the given melody in similar motion.  Usually, counterpoint involves independent voices and one of the first and most important rules in creating independent voices is that you shouldn't double them for any substantial length of time at the same interval.  Even 3rds and 6ths doubled for too long stop being independent and blend together into just one voice.  Counterpoint would also involve the different voices moving in different independent rhythmic values and in contrary, oblique and similar motion.  There is nothing contrapuntal about what you've presented in my opinion.

Another issue is that your renditions are really grating on the ears and hard to listen to.  Why do your renditions use sawtooth-wave synthesizer sounds?  Even if you subscribe to the moog-synthesizer invention style of music, there are more palatable sounds available to you that you don't seem to use.  I honestly haven't listened to any of your recent submissions all the way through because of this.  I just can't listen to something that grating for it's full duration - and I don't understand how anyone could find anything about this beautiful.  I hope you don't take this as a damning criticism, I'm just trying to describe my listening experience and put my reaction into words.  Thanks for sharing though.

 

I'm gradually improving the program. Obviously, it's not perfect. It's just getting better and better. As far as why I'm doing this, it's because I want to understand the nature of music. I don't care that AI can do a better job. That isn't the point of this endeavor.

1 minute ago, Polaris said:

I've been studying dissonance for the past hour, and I've come up with a theory that I think explains it very well. Here's a melodic fragment input into my program, where my theories are used to its advantage:

https://soundcloud.com/user-321964225/another-treatment-of-the-same-melodic-fragment

Well I just clicked into the post to listen it, unawaring the volume and my ears really got hurt by it for real!! Those shivering sound is annoying and damaging my ears to be honest! I really don't know what your theory is to be honest, but I know my ears are hurting!! 🤪

Also, you're not correct that the music I've posted so far consists of purely parallel motion. It did have a fair lot of that for reasons I've already mentioned and corrected. But there were, in fact, several melodies moving independently in a number of the pieces I've posted. This is not a delusion on my part. The program I'm using tells me what notes are being used by each melody, so I know what I'm talking about.

5 minutes ago, Polaris said:

Also, you're not correct that the music I've posted so far consists of purely parallel motion. It did have a fair lot of that for reasons I've already mentioned and corrected. But there were, in fact, several melodies moving independently in a number of the pieces I've posted. This is not a delusion on my part. The program I'm using tells me what notes are being used by each melody, so I know what I'm talking about.

Like I said, I rarely listened to them all the way through for the reasons I cited, so my apologies if my experience of your sounds isn't complete.  If you're happy with the progress you're making then by all means continue!  I just thought you were posting your pieces here to receive feedback about how others experience what you produce.  Nowhere did I say that you didn't know what you're talking about - I'm sure you're an expert on your own program and how you've learned to create sound using it.  Do I understand why you would want to try to create music using this method or this particular grating saw-tooth wave sound?  No, but maybe you do and as long as you do that's all that matters.  But that's my experience of what you've presented.

I agree, the piece I posted most recently did have a grating sound. I took a slight misstep, although it's interesting that I was able to get that shivering sound consistently. It at least means I was onto some kind of principle behind sound, and I learned something from it.

I'm using what is called a phasor to produce the sound. It is indeed a sawtooth wave, which is, yes, a grating sound. I intend to swap it out for something more organic, or at least pleasanter-sounding, but I haven't yet gotten around to doing that. The phasor object is what is provided ready-made in the programming language I'm using, so I've defaulted to it for now.

Here's a piece I accidentally deleted and had to reupload. I like it even if you don't:

9 minutes ago, Polaris said:

I like it even if you don't:

It's great you have a great confidence in your own works. For me personally I like your earlier music than recent music written from the program, as for me the earlier music sound more beautiful and have more varities than the recent ones when the timbre of those program music are a bit piercing to me. But that's personal and I'm sure you won't mind my very personal opinion, given how much you like your own music.

Henry

9 minutes ago, Henry Ng Tsz Kiu said:

It's great you have a great confidence in your own works. For me personally I like your earlier music than recent music written from the program, as for me the earlier music sound more beautiful and have more varities than the recent ones when the timbre of those program music are a bit piercing to me. But that's personal and I'm sure you won't mind my very personal opinion, given how much you like your own music.

Henry

 

I don't think the music is that great. I still have a long way to go. But I'm having some interesting and rather effective ideas. Keep in mind that I started designing this thing from scratch less than half a month ago. So obviously it hasn't attained anything approaching its final state.

EDIT: My goal was to be able to take a simple melody and have this program do something elaborate with it, something that preserves the melody's governing role and its status as initiator and foundation. That's basically what I've been doing so far, with ever greater precision.

1 minute ago, Polaris said:

Keep in mind that I started designing this thing from scratch less than half a month ago. So obviously it hasn't attained anything approaching its final state.

Oh I would be very happy to see your music reach its final Hegelian Geist state! Keep going!!!!!!!!!! 

Just now, Henry Ng Tsz Kiu said:

Oh I would be very happy to see your music reach its final Hegelian Geist state! Keep going!!!!!!!!!! 

 

Kudos to you for knowing who Hegel is. I'm a philosophy buff, so, unsurprisingly, I'm familiar with his teachings, as well. My love of philosophy is one of the major inspirations behind my design of this program.

Just now, Polaris said:

Kudos to you for knowing who Hegel is. I'm a philosophy buff, so, unsurprisingly, I'm familiar with his teachings, as well. My love of philosophy is one of the major inspirations behind my design of this program.

Oh so how is your program related to Hegel's writing? I am quite interested in it to be honest.

7 minutes ago, Henry Ng Tsz Kiu said:

Oh so how is your program related to Hegel's writing? I am quite interested in it to be honest.

 

Not so much Hegel. Christianity, in my own highly mystical and unique brand, is the primary philosophical inspiration behind this program. I know not everyone agrees with the teachings of Christ, but there are million things in my life that point strongly and unambiguously to the truth of the religion. Christianity is written into the very fabric of the universe at all levels. And no, I'm not one of those naive Christians who believe everything they say at church. I have a lot of strong disagreements with common teachings in the religion. But I do think the religion is at its heart true, and it has served as a wellspring of inspiration for me.

2 minutes ago, Polaris said:

Christianity, in my own highly mystical and unique brand, is the primary philosophical inspiration behind this program. I know not everyone agrees with the teachings of Christ, but there are million things in my life that point strongly and unambiguously to the truth of the religion. Christianity is written into the very fabric of the universe at all levels. And no, I'm not one of those naive Christians who believe everything they say at church. I have a lot of strong disagreements with common teachings in the religion. But I do think the religion is at its heart true, and it has served as wellspring of inspiration for me.

So maybe you believe Chrsitianity much like Kierkegaard's way. Can you tell more how your religion relates to your program and the acoustical aspect of the music? I am really curious on that.

24 minutes ago, Henry Ng Tsz Kiu said:

So maybe you believe Chrsitianity much like Kierkegaard's way. Can you tell more how your religion relates to your program and the acoustical aspect of the music? I am really curious on that.

 

Music is, like all, things modeled after the Trinity--a threefold difference within sameness. That's precisely what harmony is--first of all, primarily triadic (as there are only three broad pitch classes that can be simultaneously combined while achieving a truly consonant effect); second of all, it is a coordinated action by separate agents united under one will and purpose; third, a harmony is one thing with many--primarily, three--parts. We simultaneously hear it as one and as more than one. If it were just one, it would not be harmony; and if it were composed of things completely separate, it would not be harmony either. It is, like the Trinity, both at the same time.

I believe I have found the main principle behind varying and selecting a variety of chord types rather than mainly just one as happened in many of my previous pieces from the program of mine. A short example. All I did was enter the simple melody and then, through trial and error, chose the chord types by inputting from a very limited selection of numbers representing different transformations of the input melody notes into a full chords.