Progress Report #1

Well, if I claimed that I hadn't already been thinking intensively about my thesis topic prior to second semester, I'd be lying 100%. Don't get me wrong, I certainly don't have my heart set on anything (at least not completely...), but I do have several topics that I'm passionate about. And by several, I mean one: music. Luckily, music branches off in so many different directions that one topic in this sense translates to an infinite number of potential thesis topics.

In particular, I'm interested in the creative aspect of music. The following questions got me thinking: why do people enjoy different kinds of music? More specifically, what makes music 'good,' and can this quality be defined in objective terms, or is it completely dependent upon the listener? These are very broad questions and seem like they would be rather difficult to approach in the sense of a formal thesis. For this reason, I've taken interest in a more focused topic that seems to encompass all of these questions at the same time: randomly generated music - formally known as algorithmic composition.

The idea behind algorithmic composition is to get computers to compose original, creative, and pleasing pieces of music using one or many techniques that combine music theory with computer sciences. Considering my deep interest in both of these subjects, I feel that this would be a great topic that I would really like to delve in to. My research question would be something along the lines of can computers be used to create original, create, and above all good-sounding music?

Ultimately, if I continue to pursue this topic, I would like to do a creative paper in which I outline various methods for attempting to fullfill the aforementioned question, as well as construct a computer program to do so. Imagine a program in which you simply selected a desired genre and certain other song specficiations, hit a button, waited half a minute, and then sat back and listened to a completely original piece of music with your desired specifications. Or even better - forget the shuffle button on iTunes...just hit a "random all" button on the program and watch it automatically create an entire CD worth of new music and burn it to a CD. Wouldn't that make those long car trips go by a LOT faster? I sure think so.

Best of all, if such a program were created, it would truly be one-of-a-kind. There are several algorithmic composition tools available on the web, but so far I have found none that truly impress me in terms of musical quality. Here is a link to my favorite one so far, entitled "cgMusic." Scroll down and check out the sample "dance_s90es.mp3". It's my favorite and, in my opinion, that's pretty darn good for computer music. Still, I think there's a lot of room for improvement.

A quick side note before anyone starts pointing fingers - this is NOT a rip-off of Matthew Saltz' thesis! Matthew has created an excel-based spreadsheet program that statistically analyzes music progressions and uses these statistics to generate new, random progressions that sound good. His thesis focuses on a very specific part of the overarching field of algorithmic composition, that is, the progression of a song. Click here if you don't know what that means and you want to find out. He uses first-order Markov chains, a mathematical method of algorithmic composition, to generate new progressions. I, on the other hand, want to pioneer a more general but all-encompassing method of algorithmic composition, bringing all the more specific pieces together to create comprehensive generator that creates progressions as well as melody, harmony, bass, drums as well as mastering effects. So no, I am not trying to copy anyone!

There are a lot of techniques for generating random music. Some are very simple and some are insanely complex. For example, one technique known as fractal composition involves the mapping of various mathematical fractal equations to pitches in order to generate a song (that may interest you, Robin?) - see fractalcomposer to try it out yourself with an online program that lets you make your own simple fractal songs. One of my personal favorites is known as a genetic algorithm, which involves the 'breeding' of pitch generators that have 'DNA.' When a user selects his or her favorite generators from one generation, the DNA combines and the next generation gets that much closer to something that sounds like good music; this process essentially models evolution and works based on the 'natural selection' of the user.


Speaking of evolution, even though I've already written far too much, I will say that I am also very interested in evolution and natural selection. Personally I think Darwin's theories have far too many flaws to be reconciled. What's worse, I feel that contemporary molecular biologists ignore many of the gaping holes in the theory. Worse still, much of the scientific community is now using evolution as an atheist front, attempting to squeeze religion out of all public systems, as is apparent in many of the recent court cases and the overall tone of every Scientific American article written on the subject. I'd like to explore some of the shortfalls of these theories.

Consider my apologies extended to anyone who actually took the time to trudge through that superfluous jungle of thoughts. I'm finished for now!