Computer
Music
Computer Music is a short, three movement choral composition project that has been in the works since the Spring of 2020 (or more accurately the Spring of 2019). This project embraces the collaboration of arts and technology, and demonstrates the struggles of this collaboration. What may seem like a relatively normal choral composition is actually heavily facilitated by an algorithm which was written to generate many of the notes in the piece. The algorithm used to generate these notes was written in python. The python script then converted these notes into a format readable for the engraving program Lilypond, which is ultimately where the piece was composed. Through my work with this piece, I found that the computer could not alway be programmed to create the exact sound that I wanted, and the algorithm would not always produce a melodic line that I enjoyed. This led me to take the technology from a computer to a pencil and paper and intervene to modify the piece when I did not like what the computer was producing. This juxtaposition of the aid that a computer provides, as well as the complications that it might provide an artist can be heard through the increasing chaos of the music and the lyrics in each movement.
Watch the premiere choral video of Computer Music. Each movement features a variation of the "poem" below. The titles of each of the three movements reflects a different point in the programming process, some of which call attention to the annoyances of technology which you may see reflected in the corresponding movement.
Computer Music ................................................................................... Megan Aldrich
I. Launch Python
II. Invalid Syntax
III. quit( )
Megan Aldrich, soprano
Stephanie Lewis, alto
Josh Moylan, tenor
Evan Strouse, bass
"Computer Music"
What if?
What if this song was
Composed
by a
Computer?
The product of a well composed algorithm,
What would you say?
An algorithm composed
for composition,
and makes music.
What if,
What would you say?