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A Computer Composing and Playing Jazz
Roland Piquepaille writes "The Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) has some unusual teaching programs. One PhD student, Øyvind Brandtsegg, is a graduate of the jazz program and this article describes how has developed a computer program and a musical instrument for improvisation. The PhD student is 36 years old and is at the same time a composer, a musician and computer programmer. His 'computer instrument' can take any recorded sound as input and split it into a number of very short sound particles that can last for between 1 and 10 milliseconds. 'These fragments may be infinitely reshuffled, making it possible to vary the music with no change in the fundamental theme.'" Brandtsegg improvisational software is called ImproSculpt; his site contains several selections from his musical output, including "some pieces made with the predecessor of ImproSculpt," called FollowMe.
Well, obviously the tech is already widely available, but a clever application of it that creates beautiful music (if it in fact does) is still awesome.
I mean, not every cool invention is going to be super groundbreaking, like the lightbulb. Some are just going to be good adaptations of existing tech, like lamps and lampshades.