Michael Young

Electronic Music Studios

Music Department

Goldsmiths

University of London

m.young@gold.ac.uk

www.goldsmiths.ac.uk/ems

www.michaelyoung.info

M Young
live electronics – living computer music

• paradigms of
- the computer-as-instrument – a tool that relies on human agency
- the computer-as-proxy – substitute for the ‘composer’ in pre-designed functions
(e.g. laid out in a score, instructions or rule set etc.)

• realised ‘live’ (might) = also a creative engagement between human players & machine
players

• the musical space itself becomes living: evident in emergent complexities

- algorithms & people interact.

• who or what is the music-maker, what is a ‘live electronics’ composition?

- composer.... designer... performer....machine

M Young
Live Algorithms for Music network (LAM) www.livealgorithms.org

• anideal autonomous system able to engage in performance in ways analogous (if not
identical) to a human musician
- network created 2004 with Tim Blackwell, Dept. of Computing, Goldsmiths. UK
Funded by UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council
- Symposia, concerts, plans for future research: 100+ members (UK, US, France):
performers, composers, researchers in AI, machine consciousness, music
informatics, software engineers

• explore advances in understandings of machine intelligence:

- music informatics, evolutionary computation, self-organising maps

•atrue live algorithm would offers autonomy: to invent, provoke & respond, function in
many contexts, engage with performers at a commensurate level…

• live algorithms relevant when there is creative, group interaction…

- ‘free’ improvised music: structure & character emerge, products of heterarchical
group behaviour: languages formulate pragmatically, self-referentially, on-the-fly

M Young
Chatterbox (1998/2000) flute and Max + K2000 Jos Zwaanenburg.

Argrophylax (2004/06). oboe and computer Chris Redgate Oboe+ Berio and Beyond CD
www.oboeclassics.com

ebbs- (2005). violin, cello and computer

aur(or)a (2005/6-). solo instrument, disklavier & computer

piano_prosthesis, oboe_prosthesis, cello version (2006/8) performer & computer

Groundbreaking - past landscapes in grains and pixels (2007) & Exposure –

understanding living in extreme environments (2008)

Young, M. ‘Au(or)a: Exploring Attributes of a Live Algorithm’. Electroacoustic Music Studies Network
Conference, 2007 www.ems-network.org

Young, M. ‘NN Music: Improvising with a ‘Living’ Computer’. Proc. of the International Computer Music
Conference, Copenhagen 2007.

also in Kronland-Martinet, R. et al (Ed.s) 2008 Computer Music Modeling and Retrieval: Sense of
Sounds. Lecture Notes in Computer Science.

M Young
are these – ‘works’…?
a score (even an open score)
• a fixed representation of intentions & record of creative decision-making process

a generative–interactive computer system,

• a fixed or mutable resource, capable of response and pro-action – proxy for the
composer, or capable of genuine creativity/novelty? scores that allow space for that….

real-time composition: iterative, complex interplay of motivating forces: algorithmic (i.e.

system-driven) and interactive (i.e. responsive to an environment) = “super Turing
machines” capable of i/o interactions while running.
• absence of “reverse time” compositional re-evaluation
• we witness the “actualisation” of aims, or they just emerge

composition as an (open) exploration of data space

• the ‘text’ is – as in Livre, Mallarmé “a book does not start nor does not finish” every
performance explores the composition but does not exhaust it, i.e. not just incomplete,
but draws attention to its incompleteness

• Husserl: that which is perceived draw’s attention to that which is not, or is about to
be: continuous projection …perception includes horizons which encompass other
possibilities. Méditations Cartésiennes

M Young
argrophylax and ebbs-

• distancing & difference-ing

- re-tunings, microtones, strained harmonic fields of equal intervals, instantaneous
fx processing
- repetition to show difference:
 system listens, applies fx, sample-based materials, recording/reconstructing :
+ onset & pitch detection
 driven by stochastic system – performers respond to electronic events that
acquire the function of pro-action not just response.

• how musical meanings develop – through difference

- Jacques Derrida - difference - différance : the unconceptualizable dimension in
language : no absolute identity signs only mean by difference
 as time (to defer: what happens to meaning in language in a relational
system)
 as space (unlike, distinction between proximate things)
- the trace is the after-effect: future and past marked in a present moment.

M Young
 ebbs- section 1
brain
• decide who to listen to
• interpret live audio: inc pitch
• internal clocks
• determine interactive behaviours
• control presets governing moods
of….

spectral windowing ring modulation synthetic events, rhythmic

• timbral reduction • table of “harmonic field” events
• time stretching modulators • pitch sensitive

M Young
 ebbs- section 4
brain
• decide who to listen to
• interpret live audio: inc pitch
• internal clocks
• determine interactive behaviours
• control presets governing moods
of….

phase vocoder pitch harmonisation granulation textures

• live recording and • according to “harmonic • scanning buffer,
vari-speed playback fields” looped

M Young
Adaptability: ability to acclimatise to a shared environment
• demonstrated in changes of behaviour. musical environment capable of change
unlikely to be pre-determined

not necessarily conscious or intentional, even though performers may wish to

communicate.
• emotional transduction? “bi-directional transfer of intentionality through sound” (Lewis)

performers adapt to their shared sonic environment, not to one another.

• stigmergy: insect populations self-organise by individuals adapting to environment;
not directly communicating even though the result seems designed.

music performance – a complex and dynamic self-organising system

• if individuals commune with shared audio environment not directly with one another
- avoids problem of intention in machine cognition - avoids anthropomorphism

musical collaboration involves a continuous adaptation based on mutual listening.

• goals are identified, roles assumed and cast, new, shared history evolves as the
cooperative experience develops.
• players become aware of the appropriateness of their response to others’ contributions
and appraise their own ability to initiate behaviour from others VIA the (sonic)
environment.

M Young
Empowerment: control over decisions that impact upon future experience.

decisions have to have a context:

• options? : properties, consequences : aims that inform choices, criteria to evaluate.

• in improvised performance, decisions do not have definable aims or evaluative criteria,

but a framework (e.g. for interaction) might be at least implicit.
• AI systems effective in adapting, delivering pre-defined outcomes are not necessarily
useful. e.g. BDI systems implement rules, respond only to knowable measures have
clear pre-determined aims, even though they actively respond while running

Algorithms do not cognate – no creative decisions but non-arbitrary changes in

state.
• non-linear dynamical systems; cellular automata, particle swarms, genetic algorithms
and neural networks. - potential self-organising properties offer novel problem-solving,
invention, surprise. do not necessarily achieve intended goals, but might find new
ones. : mapping problems…?

a non-arbitrary change of state is manifest as a ‘decision’ when it modifies the audio

environment
• a change ‘empowered’ to demand a response from both human and machine
participants alike; it has the affect of intention: developing “fields of relations” (Eco)

M Young
Intimacy. experienced – or apparent – as a binding understanding shared by performers
through informed listening and observation.

social process, but can be experienced in and through sound itself : machine
emulation attends to sound – nuance, wider characteristics.

devices/control data for user action only receptive, not intimate.

intimacy here = responsiveness, emulation of physical interaction with instruments

a truly intimate is learned, not provided, experienced within the sound environment,
genuinely interactive.

suggests “optimal flow”; a goal-orientated, mental state, limits of experience and

expectation, pleasure in meeting challenges with appropriate skills : effectiveness of group
collaborations can be evaluated with this measure (Sawyer).
a human performer might infer that flow is occurring for all participants, including
machines..?

M Young
Opacity.
prerequisite for flow, avoidance of the naïve causes and effects

‘interactivity’ devalued? often equated with a one-directional transfer of information, user-

to-machine; reaction, not interaction “…interactivity has gradually become a metonym for
information retrieval rather than dialogue, posing the danger of . . . reifying the encounter
with technology” (Lewis)

could offer ambiguous/shifting balance between reactive & proactive, across threshold of
the apparently chaotic and the readily comprehensible

M Young
Unimagined (music): unresolved and unknown characteristics offering a genuine reason
for machine-human collaboration.

• computers should extend, not parody, human creative behaviour

Unimagined music, moves “… toward a permanent discovery – comparable to a

'permanent revolution’." (Boulez) refers to method, “fluidity of vocabulary
• ‘living’ computer music might permanently explore – emergent languages, in real-
time, not just in concept.

“musique informelle” (Adorno) “discards all forms which are external or abstract or which
confront it in an inflexible way, free of anything irreducibly alien to itself or superimposed on
it”
• informal does not mean intuitive; does not deny potential for objective structural
complexity & coherence.
• unpredicted acts of a performer, and implicit (i.e. virtual) acts of the machine could
exemplify this coherence, but not through the sonification of external rules or
randomness.
• a critical engagement between intended behaviours, an appraisal of potential
behaviours and response to actual sonic events and their unfolding history –
integration of subject (performer) - organism (the musical system regarded as a
whole).

M Young
NN Music : oboe_ & piano_prosthesis

P(ƒX) ƒ(h) Q(ƒY)

X → {p0, p1, …pn} → ƒ(h) → {q0, q1, …qn} → Y

• feed-forward neural network : learning and classification; potential for self-organising,

behaviours effective as ƒ(h) patterning algorithm. multilayer perceptron neural network
trained by a back-propagation: capacity for tolerance to unpredictable data

• audio analysis P & synthesis Q mapped via feed-forward neural network(s) in real-
time: network adapts to attributes of the performance, outputs synthesis parameters

• training recurs during performance, depends on variance in musical behaviour

measured from the human musician

• compares current behaviour to history of classified ones. ie. can adapt to

contingencies of a specific performance,

• ‘knowledge’ of the trained network is opaque; ascertained through experimental

enquiry: by covertly mapping classifications to output synthesiser with its own range of
behaviours

M Young
Pitch analysis and generation.
stream of data, accurate to the nearest quarter-tone,
filtered by an attentiveness function
When the primary set Schord is updated with a new pitch, a generative function, ƒgen,
recalculates ten other hexachords by cross-multiplying each pitch within the primary set.

live audio audio → pitch detection note filter:

{x0, x1, …xn}: attentivenes
s

M Young
Audio analysis and training. P
→ƒ(h)
applies audio descriptors (loudness,
brightness, duration between
events, sustained-ness, frequency
etc.) - creates a dynamic
performance state, Saudio, statistical
representation of performance
behaviour

when music begins, network trains

several new states, progressively
learns others (filtered by a fitness
function). The network is continually
queried to evaluate how far the
current state approximates any of
those previously learned.

M Young
 Maps and Synthesis: ƒ(h) → Q
second network B, trained in advance to
generate synthesis functions Q, stochastic
sample/real-time processing

Network B creates new input nodes as the

list increases, allows network to access
more data from its previously learned set
of outputs; library of potential outputs is the
‘knowledge-base’. It is decisive in
characterising the music; a framework, a
field of relations

covert mapping : outputs of network A , via

ƒmap, andomly re-sorts data. provides
genuine opacity; challenging the player to
adapt as the system’s behaviour
diversifies. The player is invited to attempt
to learn which performance actions elicit a
given response

for future: efficiency/timing: structural listening…?

M Young
1. Blackwell, T., Young, M.: Live Algorithms. Artificial Intelligence and Simulation of Be-haviour Quarterly. 122, 7--9 (2005)
2. Young, M.: NN Music: Improvising with a ‘Living’ Computer. In: Proc.of the International Computer Music Conference. ICMA, San Francisco (2007)
3. Young, M.: Au(or)a: Exploring Attributes of a Live Algorithm. Electroacoustic Music Stud-ies Network Conference. (2007). http://www.ems-network.org/spip.php?rubrique49
4. Lewis, G. E.: Too Many Notes: Computers, Complexity and Culture in Voyager. Leonardo Music Journal. 10, 33–-39, MIT Press, (2000)
5. Miranda E.R, Biles J.A.: Evolutionary Computer Music. Springer-Verlag: London. (2007).
6. Blackwell, T., Young, M.: Self-Organised Music. Organised Sound. 9:2, 123--136. Cam-bridge University Press. (2004)
7. Bastien, B. T. and Hostager, T.: Cooperative as communicative accomplishment: a symbolic interaction analysis of an improvised jazz concert. Communication Studies, 43,
92--104. (1992)
8. Rao, A. S., Georgeff, M. P.: Modeling rational agents within a BDI-architecture. In: 2nd In-ternationl Conference. on the Principles of Knowledge Representation and
Reasoning. 473--484. Morgan Kaufmann, CA. (1991)
9. Hermann T., Ritter H.: Sound and Meaning in Auditory Data Display. IEEE Special Issue on Engineering and Music - Supervisory Control and Auditory Communication. 92:4,
730--741 (2004)
10. Eco. U.: The Open Work. Trans. Anna Cancogni. Harvard University Press. (1989).
11. Wessel, D. and Wright, M. Problems and Prospects for Intimate Musical Control of Com-puters. Computer Music Journal. 26:3. 11—22. (2002)
12. Csikszentmihalyi, M.: Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. Harper Collins. (1991)
13. Sawyer, R. K.: Group creativity: Music, Theater, Collaboration. Lawrence Erlbaum Associ-ates. (2003)
14. Boulez, P.: Sonate, que me veux-tu? In: Orientations: Collected Writings. London: Faber and Faber. (1986)
15. Adorno, T.:Vers une Musique Informelle. In: Quasi une Fantasia, trans. Rodney Livinstone. London: Verso. (1963)
16. Stojanov, G., Stojanoski, K.: Computer Interfaces: From Communication to Mind-Prosthesis Metaphor. In: Cognitive Technology: Instruments of Mind. LNCS, vol. 2117. pp.
301 --311. Springer, Heidelberg (2001)
17. Toivianen, P.: Symbolic AI versus Connectionism in Music Research. In: Miranda, E. (ed.) Readings in Music and Artificial Intelligence. Harwood Academic (2000)
18. Koblyakov, L.: Pierre Boulez: A World of Harmony. Harwood Academic (1990).
19. Bailey, D.: Improvisation: Its Nature and Practice in Music. Da Capo Press (1992)
20. Prevost, E.: No Sound Is Innocent: AMM and the Practice of Self-invention. Copula (1995)
21. Xenakis, I.: Formalized Music: Thought and Mathematics in Composition. Rev. Ed. Pen-dragon Press (2001)

M Young