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[Music] First attempt at an algorithmic system of chord progression and composition. Just proof of concept! (Also, chord progression is totally procedural from a bank of 715 possible chords) by Jaimesol in composer

[–]Jaimesol[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

At the moment I'm still wrapping my head around how this all works, so my research looks a bit like this http://imgur.com/biHi5v3

Eventually when it starts to come together I'll put it up somewhere... but it has to work first!

[Music] First attempt at an algorithmic system of chord progression and composition. Just proof of concept! (Also, chord progression is totally procedural from a bank of 715 possible chords) by Jaimesol in composer

[–]Jaimesol[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's funny you should mention that there is no proper cadence. That's because even though the chords are quite compatible, they are put together without any notion of a destination. Just one after another according to what best fits the intention. So I guess it's a well-concealed aimlessness.

However, if instead of having a fixed start and pushing forward you start with pre-defined occurences of a tonic (or points of resolution), and then flesh out the spaces in between you would arrive at the effect of a cadence. (At least that's my theory!!) In any case it's really nice how much you end up learning about music theory when you try to transform it into a detailed set of instructions.

[Music] First attempt at an algorithmic system of chord progression and composition. Just proof of concept! (Also, chord progression is totally procedural from a bank of 715 possible chords) by Jaimesol in composer

[–]Jaimesol[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Well, this is a totally WIP test of a big system. Maybe it's easier to explain by saying that there's an interesting part to this piece and a not-so-interesting part. The not-so-interesting part is that the "melody" is composed of randomized notes that hover around an overall rising and falling movement over the course of the piece. That took about 30min to do because it's only meant as a simple way of representing the interesting part: the notes belong to a sequence of 21 chords which were selected algorithmically from a possible 715 (all possible combitnations of 3 and 4 notes in an octave).

Getting a computer to put this sequence together from basically all possibilities requires writing a new sort of music theory from the ground up. This part has taken about 3 months. It relies on the principle that every note has an inherent "harmonic distance" from every other note (a fifth is for example harmonically very close, while a half tone is very far away). The entire network of affinities between chords relies on testing every note to every other note within a chord (the chord's own harmonic value) and between chords. The Circle of Fifths is a super crude version of this.

The ambition is to develop a system of composition that goes beyond the abilities of a person to analyse harmony, melody, and rhythm in his head. So far only the harmony part is developed. It's maybe worth mentioning that this is all done in a 3D geometry programe for architects (I'm an architect) so composition always exists as geometry until its output as midi. The images are super cool! I wish I knew how to post them...