Generative music - looking for ideas

Creations & Ideas
1

Hello,
I’ve started working on a project using the Sonic Pi together with an AKAI MPK MIDI keyboard to play along an improvisation dance act.
The idea of making electronic music that will be “reactive” to the different moods on stage brought me to this amazing piece by 42Percent Noir, in which parameters of the randomly generated music are controlled through MIDI.

I was wondering if any of you ever had experience with creating such music (generative + parameter-controlled live) and if there are any insights or examples you would like to share.

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This is a very simple demo but principles the behind the “Mad Music Machine” are randomly generated Sonic Pi loops (within certain parameters to keep them ‘musical’) where the variable ‘seeds’ are set by external controls.

You will see from the video that it is obviously aimed at kids (I run Code Clubs etc), but given more time I am sure this could be made a lot more ‘professional’.

And here’s the same algorithm slightly tweaked and control external synths.

Thanks for posting on this subject - I will be following with interest

3

Hi,

another example:

The manipulation basically consist in changing the parameters sent to spread to get overlays and changes in the pattern, which results in increasing complexity. The bassline is ‘automated’.

If you are interested: https://gist.github.com/mbutz/ed8105fa24c0ccd1eee9c078ea9a65de

I have not checked the code, but it should run; here is an earlier version which does not use midi: https://gist.github.com/mbutz/a0643dcde10efd080067cf8a79daed3c

Martin

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