From Bob Masta
Computer-generated art and music may reveal much about ourselves, as your feature suggested (14 January, p 42). Music arises from the interplay between two fundamental brain mechanisms – pattern recognition and novelty detection. Since our brains can detect patterns and novelty on many levels, music can include patterns within patterns within patterns.
Consider a series of random piano notes. If each of the 88 notes on the keyboard is equally probable, the result is usually unpleasant. But restricting the series to only black keys within, say, a two-octave range gives results that are definitely musical.
Yet even though the note sequence is random, you will soon habituate unless there is additional novelty, even something as simple as randomly changing the octave range or instrument voice.
With a few rules like these, a computer can create surprisingly listenable results. While such quasi-random frontier music is fun to play with, it isn’t likely to put musicians out of work. But it does help illuminate what our brains find interesting and pleasing.
Advertisement
Ann Arbor, Michigan, US
