MOTM

Thanks, Larry.  I appreciate your comment.

Let's be precise about the meaning of aleatoric music.  It pertains to 
chance, leaving some aspects of the music undetermined by the composer.  
In the history of music, chance music holds a venerable place, and much 
predates the synthesizer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleatoric_music

My little 'pixie' piece actually isn't very aleatoric.  It's a recorded 
performance, albeit a simple one.  I set up a deterministic sequence of 
notes.  I manually mixed in the FM and punched in and out the digital 
effect, during the recording.  It had one pseudo-random element, which 
was the transposition on the quantizer being changed by a sample & hold 
every 16 beats.  If I had twiddled the transpose knob during the 
recording instead of using the sample & hold, it would not have been 
aleatoric at all.  (Nor would it suddenly, due to that fact, have become 
better music.)

It is relatively easy to make some interesting sounds using an 
electronic synthesizer to impart chance elements, if you understand how 
to use the synthesizer.  I, and others, have a lot of fun doing just 
that, with what talent we may possess.  A composer could use a 
synthesizer for more serious aleatoric work, and, depending on their 
talent and the listener's taste, produce some truly excellent music.

-Richard Brewster

Larry David wrote:
> Thanks for posting that Richard - I always enjoy hearing what other  
> people are doing with their synths.  Just in case my comments in  
> reply to Kenneth's post be misunderstood, I like all kinds of synth  
> music, including aleatoric, and I appreciate it when someone is  
> willing to share their music even if it isn't the best thing they've  
> ever done or heard.  Very few of us are really great at synth  
> programming *or* music, but we can all enjoy it - our stuff and  
> others'.  Keep it coming...
>
> ld
>
> On May 13, 2007, at 10:54 AM, Richard Brewster wrote:
>
>   
>> http://www.pugix.com/music-samples.htm
>>
>> Click on the Pixies link.
>>
>> And after what I said yesterday about notes!
>>
>> -Richard Brewster
>>
>>