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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.
"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."
Yeah, that's called granular synthesis, and it's been around for awhile. There are a number of free and inexpensive grain cloud generators available...I wrote one myself, actually (http://atomiccloud.gersic.com/).
ZuluPad, the wiki notepad on crack
Without machines, who will feed us and clothe us and compose our smooth jazz?
Have a human jazz band playing and let a computer or a human do the solos. The jury should not be able to distinguish between them.
DNA is the ultimate spaghetti code.