One of the most often cited examples of algorithmic music in the Classical Period (1750-1827) is Musikalisches Würfelspiel by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791). In this composition, Mozart composed discrete musical excerpts that could be combined to form a waltz. The order of musical excerpts was determined by rolling two six-sided dice. The person assembling the waltz would refer to a table created by Mozart that showed which music should be used for the values of 2-12 on the dice.
After Wagner, there was pretty much nothing new that could be done with tonal composition. So music hipsters everywhere were distraught, and looking for a way to push composition and music theory in general forward. The answer came from Arnold Schoenberg and his followers in the early 20th century in the form of serial composition. Serial composition introduced a set of rules for composition that arguably served to birth algorithmic composition as we know it today.
"Jovially quick"
Alban Berg, 1926
2:52
Romanticism pushed the harmonic vocabulary into the extreme use of chromaticism. After Richard Wagner (1813-1883), there was very little a composer could do that would be considered novel using tonal music theory. Arnold Schoenberg, and his pupils Anton Webern and Alban Berg, established new procedures for composition called serial composition .
In serial composition, the composer works with a series of twelve chromatic tones of equal importance. In strict serial composition, no tone may be repeated until all twelve have been used. The total number of twelve-note series is 479,001,600 [Brindle, 1969] which greatly expands the melodic and harmonic vocabulary of the late Romantic period. Because of the equal importance of the twelve chromatic tones, serial composition eroded tonality and gave rise to atonality.
Algorithmic procedures lend themselves well to serial composition. To introduce variation into a serial composition, the composer may use permutations of the tone row derived from transposition, inversion, retrograde, or retrograde inversion of the row. Alban Berg used a tone row in combination with a table of such permutations in the composition of his Lyric Suite for string quartet, finished in 1926.
Iannis Xennakis, 1956
10:40
Iannis Xenakis was a Romanian-born, Greek-French composer, music theorist, architect, and engineer. After 1947, he fled Greece, becoming a naturalized citizen of France. He is considered an important post-World War II composer whose works helped revolutionize 20th century classical music. He was perhaps more focused than any preceding composer on the direct application of mathematical to the compositional process.
He studied with the best: composition with Messiaen and architecture with Le Corbusier and eventually went on to found the famous School of Mathematical and Automated Music in Paris in 1966. His music is described as stochastic music meaning he uses probability theory in the selection of musical parameters. Xenakis exploited probability theory in his search for new musical form and structure. One of Xenakis' well-known works, Pithoprakta (1955-56), creates dense sound masses determined by probabilistic methods.
Karlheinz Stockhausen, 1956
6:51
The music of Karlheinz Stockhausen (1928-) stands in sharp contrast to that of Iannis Xenakis. Stockhausen developed serial composition to its extreme by not only applying serial methods to pitch, but also rhythm, dynamics, timbre, and density. Stockhausen was influenced by the German philosopher Hegel and his doctrine on the unity of opposites. Stockhausen applied Hegelian philosophy by using calculations to pre-compose his music while integrating chance operations into the performance. A stunning example of his work is the Klavierstück X1 (1956) composed for piano. The score, measuring about thirty-seven inches by twenty-one inches, consists of nineteen carefully composed segments that the pianist performs in whatever order his or her eye happens to fall upon the score. Stockhausen employed chance operations similar to those explored by Mozart in his Musikalisches Würfelspiel almost two hundred years earlier.
Lejaren Hiller and Leonard Isaccson, 1957
4:47
Hiller created the Illiac Suite with a colleague while working in the chemistry department at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Working there on the ILLIAC IV, the first large-scale university computer, Hiller recognized certain parallels between computer applications in science and the process of composing. The result was the Illiac Suite for String Quartet, in which compositional decisions were given to the computer to make in conformity with a set of rules or weighted probabilities set down by the composer. Although performed by humans, this was the first example of composition being generated directly by a computer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0njBFLQSk8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fojKZ1ymZlo
Iannis Xenakis, 1962
12:00 Excerpt from 0:00 to 4:31
1962, Xenakis began to use the computer to assist in the calculations for his compositions Amorsima-Morsima and Strategie. for piano, violin, cello and double bass (1962)
Robert Baker and Lejaren Hiller, 1963
6:36
Computer Cantata pieces (five in all) were also created by Hiller (in collaboration with other professors at the Univeristy of Illinois) this time using data representing "stochastic settings of five successive approximations of spoken English".
https://open.spotify.com/track/6BGoibUlbi6hAHMtuUF6Ii?si=BwlStD2IQz6QRGOt0GIAnQ
John Cage and Lejaren Hiller, 1969
Excerpt from 0:00 to 6:00
John Cage (1912-1992) was a self-declared indeterminist. Cage integrated Eastern philosophies, especially Zen Buddhism, and the I Ching Book of Changes, into his compositions. A landmark collaboration between Cage and Hiller resulted in the multi-media composition HPSCHD (1967-1969), The composition uses computer print outs, excerpts of traditional music, and visual elements depicting space and rocket technology. The traditional music is derived from Mozart's Musikalisches Würfelspiel and his piano Sonatas. Cage's statement, "it is the machine that will help us to know whether we understand our own thinking processes," demonstrates his philosophical comradeship with Lejaren Hiller. HPSCHD requires up to seven harpsichords and fifty-one electronic tapes that are combined in any possible way to achieve unique performances. The composition received its world premiere before an audience of nine thousand at the University of Illinois on May 16, 1969. The performance included all seven harpsichords, fifty-one computer-generated tapes, eighty slide projectors, and seven film projectors.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_hTxJpWITw
John Melby, 1970
Excerpt from 0:00 to 4:43
Working at Princeton University Computer Center, Melby first set an algorithmically-generated score set to tape using a variety of synthesized sounds, then augmented these by a live performance from a brass quintet.
Ge Wang, 2013
7:49
Live performance piece with algorithmically generated elements created by the creator of the ChucK synthesis language.
https://vimeo.com/100624271 www.gewang.com/ http://chuck.cs.princeton.edu/
Sean Sawyer, 2014
2:59
Composed and synthesized using ChucK: http://chuck.cs.princeton.edu/
https://soundcloud.com/seanakadug/tunnel
The notes above are liberally plagiarized from these sources:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HPSCHD
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algorithmic_composition
- https://ccrma.stanford.edu/~blackrse/algorithm.html
- http://www.indiana.edu/~emusic/courses/K509/algoex.htm
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illiac_Suite
- http://www.musicainformatica.org/topics/lejaren-hiller.php
- https://quod.lib.umich.edu/s/spobooks/bbv9810.0001.001/1:5/--algorithmic-composition-a-gentle-introduction-to-music?rgn=div1;view=fulltext
- https://archive.org/details/experimentalmusi00hill
- https://www.ted.com/talks/ge_wang_the_diy_orchestra_of_the_future
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YS0bhiXd5ZE
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iannis_Xenakis
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UPIC
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyric_Suite_(Berg)
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klavierst%C3%BCcke_(Stockhausen)#Klavierst%C3%BCck_XI:_polyvalent_structure