Coordinating Chance

Over the years, I have composed many generative music and visual artworks. This has often taken the form of using pre-made or designed tools that use permutations, chance algorithms, experimental interfaces and expression formats to “play” or “control” them. Many years ago I wrote an honours thesis about performance and the creation of expressive tools. Today’s blog won’t be as nearly as in depth. It will be a general guide to tools that can be used to create and ‘control’ chance. I call it coordination. You are a composer, and much as conductor. You let the work play itself, but you tweak the form to your style. There is a lot of nuance in the influence you can have over your work. I will specifically focus on audio in this blog, however there are a lot of features that can be applied to the visual or other experimental arts.

SONIC ELEMENTS

Let’s start with some sonic elements that can be controlled:

• Amplitude and Volume

• Textures and Layers

• Pitch, Frequency and Melody

• Pitch Contour and Shape

• Timbre and instrumentation

• Filters and Modulators

• Form and Structure

• Tonality, Key and Colour

• Harmony and Dissonance

• Rhythm and Pulses

• Silence and Sound

• Speed and Repetition

• Duration and Length

• Audio Panning and Space

• Output and Input Sources

CHANCE ELEMENTS

Here are the ways that these forms can be controlled through chance. I want to focus on general concepts, instead of tools and specifics.

Edit ranges of values of parameters:

• Should they be tight ranges for more control?

• Should they be wide ranges for more freedom of expression?

Turn channels or settings, parameters, filters, or tracks on/off:

• Consider quantity of the tracks together and the quantity of the duplicated tracks

Percentage chance of an event being trigger:

• Should it be frequent?

• Should it be sparse?

• Should it change over time?

• Should it be connected to other events?

The generic categories above show the simplicity of the art form. Any one of these things could be edited and you have stochastic elements to your work. The way that they are coordinated above, give you the control and the sound as an artist. You can check out some of my tools that show off these skills to Resources.