Which plugin idea should I develop?

[nonnaci]

if you are building a system to generate good music,

That's quite an assumption.

No, not at all. I've never suggested that and I'm full well aware it isn't possible. First most because it isn't real.

My understanding is that people are deluded and believe their emotional responses dictate some sort of "higher truth" and resort to all sorts of completely imaginary abstractions to attempt to describe this.

Unfortunately the reality is quite a lot more simple. The brain is a "computer" (or something) that given specific inputs in combination with a specific state generates a specific response. The problem is that you're trying to interpret this response as having some "meaning". There is none. It simply is. It doesn't need meaning to exist.

You need to try looking at music free of your emotional delusions about it. What do you have then? This may be impossible or prohibitively difficult for yourself or most other individuals to accomplish. My suggestion is to find music you absolutely abhor and train yourself to accept it. Look at it in great detail from a neutral perspective where you would never normally be capable of accepting what you experience and so would normally avoid any such contact with this abhorrent material. This refusal to accept and experience things outside your own sphere of what you subjectively define as "good" is the basis of your delusion about what things truly exist and are.

"Higher truth" = not just truth, but truth++. A sort of truth defined by itself from its own existence alone as being true and therefore impossible to be untrue.

In reality such a definition is self-defeating. This sentence must be false.

While value-judgments ought to be decoupled from statements of logic that constitute "truth systems", the aim of exploration (in the case of sound space) isn't necessarily pure-exploration for its own sake but can have ulterior motives. e.g. the progression of one's taste's in sound or to learn what we like (and hence gain self-knowledge) by exploring the unknown.

[stratum]

acidose wrote:

Unfortunately the reality is quite a lot more simple. The brain is a "computer" (or something) that given specific inputs in combination with a specific state generates a specific response. The problem is that you're trying to interpret this response as having some "meaning". There is none. It simply is. It doesn't need meaning to exist.

You need to try looking at music free of your emotional delusions about it.

Lets clarify a few things here (not that I have an impression that you disagree, but anyway).

Looking at this as an example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0zPokdN2wg

The organization of sounds observed here exists regardless of any meaning assignment one might have. Whatever thought or emotion the composer might have had while composing this doesn't change the result, yes it simply is, but is not simple sequence of random notes, there is a reason for the existence of that organization. The fact that some kind of trained statistical model or a complex algorithm might generate something like this does not mean that that statistical model or algorithm is a model of the composer, even though some would seriously argue that he is a computer of some sort; some others would disagree, but I do not think that this is really relevant. What's relevant is that this sequence of notes was not accidental, and if they have a meaning, their meaning is only relevant to the nature of people who compose and listen to it. That the tune has no meaning anywhere else simply reflects the subjectivity of the nature of that "meaning". Existence of subjectivity does not necessarily imply the composer wasn't "just a" complex computer of some sort, that question needs to be dealt separately.

[aciddose]

I won't argue that these aspects are invalid; not at all.

Only that they should absolutely be something we're all able to acknowledge as distinct perspectives that can be if desired but need not inherently be conflated.

In the sense of musical taste or a preference for particular sounds we can view these subjective properties in a statistical way. The goal then need not be to generate results which are preferred by an individual, although such results can be emergent from a system designed to produce statistical results. We can instead of attempting to do the impossible in creating an abstraction of subjective interpretation apply an approximation or series of approximations which lead to the product having a particular probability of being subjectively interpreted in the desired way.

In fact I've found such a focus near useless though as xoxos pointed out: often the best results are produced by far more chaotic systems lacking any solid logical basis. I'm able to produce results I "like" by tweaking a few parameters in a very basic system. This is why it isn't something I'm particularly interested in.

[aciddose]

Existence of subjectivity does not necessarily imply the composer wasn't "just a" complex computer of some sort, that question needs to be dealt separately.

The issue is that it isn't a question to begin with and completely unnecessary in my opinion to achieve the results we're looking for.

In defining the composer as anything but "a computer" we eliminate our ability to produce a computer system which produces the same results.

So such a view would be self-defeating from the get-go.

[Vertion]

Dear existential crisis,

How one falls into the chasms of pessimistic nihilism with only the rope of settling for life on life's terms as a way out, the shedding of the ego. We are humans, first we are here, and then we are not.. dance to the music and dream of splendor.

[Vertion]

looks better than terminator by arnold s.

arnold.jpg

[stratum]

Hi Veriton,

Goodbye to this thread (or to any other you might start, I do not talk in images)

Acidose: I haven't said the subjectivity issue was technically relevant, I just clarified a few things about your reply to xoxos. Actually I do not think there was much disagreement about it anyway.

[aciddose]

My post was mostly intended as a reply to nonnaci's post before your own. They just ended up being posted in that order.

For example nonnaci mentioned "e.g. the progression of one's taste's in sound or to learn what we like (and hence gain self-knowledge) by exploring the unknown."

My comment was saying that I certainly agree that tools could be developed to aid in such a goal. Just that it is not the basis of my interest in this subject and I do not think it is necessary to conflate these things.

[stratum]

My post was mostly intended as a reply to nonnaci's post before your own. They just ended up being posted in that order.

Thanks for the clarification.

[Vertion]

Goodbye to this thread (or to any other you might start, I do not talk in images)

I'm sorry you feel that way, I like to keep good humor and silliness... especially amongst such intellectual conjecture.. a balance of perspective.. and I of course meant no ill will, but I'm also not trying to walk on eggshells either to dodge sharing a well-intended chuckle sent your way. I come off as a philistine for the sake of self-depreciating banter, but I assure you I take all ideas discussed as a cherished priority. Most of my parodic posts are deeply embedded with relevant symbolism to the discussion, with purpose to cheer, captivate, and inspire.

That being said, I have constructed my initial algorithm for my Chord Progression generator, and am working on the initial prototype currently. I will share my algorithm and the results as I continue this coming week on it (during my free time) regardless of outcome. I welcome you and anyone else interested to read on it. I theorize and must imply that systematic results suited for personal aesthetics can in fact be intentionally generated if the proper descriptors are given, as it is an intended piece of the final product.

[stratum]

Hi Vertion,

Forums are a bit different from face to face talk, you know these things fail to be appropriate facial expressions It just doesn't work well.

Returning back to topic, I guess chord progression is an easier sub-problem, there are many genres that just use variations of a known theme. Here is one https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve-bar_blues

A few more
http://www.spanishguitarlessons.org/lea ... sions.html

But this gives an interesting clue- if a computer program is supposed to compose something, it first needs to know the structure of the type of the composition. That means the one who is going to write such a program first needs to know how to compose in that genre himself. Band in a box comes to mind, it contains information about many musical genres.

[xoxos]

Actually I do not think there was much disagreement about it anyway.

i'm not sure we reply to each other so much as opportune expression of the qualities which have kept us actualising in this field over the years

[nonnaci]

My post was mostly intended as a reply to nonnaci's post before your own. They just ended up being posted in that order.

For example nonnaci mentioned "e.g. the progression of one's taste's in sound or to learn what we like (and hence gain self-knowledge) by exploring the unknown."

My comment was saying that I certainly agree that tools could be developed to aid in such a goal. Just that it is not the basis of my interest in this subject and I do not think it is necessary to conflate these things.

Indeed, I was speaking from the perspective often brought up between the layman and the scientist. In academic circles, the researcher would like nothing more than discover fundamental knowledge but when it came time for grant reviews, proposals, and spending tax dollars, all sorts of greater-good rationales prop up. Of course, one ought not to conflate different objectives during the development but from my experience, having a quasi-unconscious value-judgment motive adds more fuel to the flame to the whole endeavor.

[xoxos]

two minutes for the basics of epistemology no but a lifetime for shit machine gangster murdering.

[aciddose]

Returning back to topic, I guess chord progression is an easier sub-problem, there are many genres that just use variations of a known theme. Here is one https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve-bar_blues
...
But this gives an interesting clue- if a computer program is supposed to compose something, it first needs to know the structure of the type of the composition. That means the one who is going to write such a program first needs to know how to compose in that genre himself. Band in a box comes to mind, it contains information about many musical genres.

For those of us who are programmers the idea of abstraction should occur here. An important question is whether it is possible to create an abstract representation of these different styles in sufficient detail to eliminate the need to manually construct distinct generators for each.

Using a single parameterized generator fed the "genetic code" for a style would be far more useful.

We should all be familiar with the fact that the best way to come up with sufficient abstractions is to produce a set of distinct implementations and work to find what they share in common. By then extending the functionality of each to fully encompass the unique functions which differ between them and simplifying the result as much as possible an abstraction is created.

Once that task is accomplished all the fun with morphing or mutating between the genetic codes for those predefined styles or genres could happen.

I agree that this likely requires a very high level of skill and experience in music composition and production techniques in combination with the fields I listed previously.

Again: Not me