[Smt-talk] Aesthetics of Computer-Generated Music

[Linda Seltzer]

"Although the computer music skeptics in the discussion may seem to have
assumed it, it is interesting that no one here has insisted much on an
essential, in all the resonances of that word, distinction between man and
machine."

Algorithmic music often deals with the organization of pitch, rhythm and
timbre from the standpoint of coherence.

Composition by a human involves other traits such as:
-personality
-gesture
-mood, depth of feeling, changes of mood
-association

It would be interesting to see whether an algorithm could simulate a
performance of a raga because the definition of a raga takes into account
the ideas of gesture and emotion and prescribes the means (characteristic
phrases, ornaments, playing techniques, microtonality) for achieving the
specified moods, and the improvisations lean heavily on permutations and
on giving higher weight to the important note (vadi).

Linda Seltzer
post-enrolled, grad, Princeton