Melody generator

[hidden80]

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Hello.

I'm testing this tool for generating melodies: http://www.link.cs.cmu.edu/melody-generator/ (http://www.link.cs.cmu.edu/melody-generator/)

Although it seems to be generating "arabic" melodies... but the idea is good, especially because when I'm blocked, I can put the root note and it throws a melody that can be used for inspiration.

Do you know more tools like this one?

[WraithGlade]

Looks interesting.

I seem to recall reading somewhere that one of the old classical composers (as in Bach, Beethoven, or whoever it was) actually had a dice game for randomly generating music.

Technically speaking, you can generate random melodies by just generating random numbers and associating those with notes, but the musical results will tend to sound (for lack of a better word) random.

The trick to randomly generating a melody that actually sounds like it has a decent structure, I imagine, would be to generate things randomly within a pattern of constraints, rather than just flat out randomly.

Native Instruments FM 8 has an arpediator which has a dice button next to every row of settings (note on, pitch, ties, etc) which technically allows you to generate random note sequences. Most of the time it will sound like random junk though. However, when you're stuck it could be useful to listen through the random junk and try to find a smaller subset of the notes that actually does have an interesting melodic quality to it and then just extend that sequence with whatever naturally sounds like it fits when you play it over in your own mind.

FM 8 doesn't generate an actual melody though (in the guaranteed sense at least), just randomization.

Some of the synths that come with Fruity Loops have randomization for creating randomly selected patches, but that's more to do with random sound design than random melodies. Still equally interesting in my opinion though.

Also, Absynth has a mutation feature that lets you blend together the current sound at random with other sounds that match the current search filter results, such as by tags describing the sounds traits or by search terms. Again though, that's random sound generation, not random melody generation.

There's almost certainly more melody generation and randomization programs out there, although it's a feature that's not taken advantage as much as it probably should be as a conveniences for when your stuck with a melody. Not sure how much out there is actually good or practical though. Artificial intelligence and randomization of composition has never really been perfected. People try though.

Oh there's also a "genetic" synthesis VST which is designed so that you choose your patches based on natural selection of the sound traits. In other words, instead of just messing with the parameters, you grow several randomized versions of the base sound automatically and then select the ones you like and cull out the rest of them and then you repeat the process until the traits that you want in the sound begin to become more prevalent. The name of the synth I saw was SynPlant

Again that's sound design though, but I figured since you're interested in randomization for composition then you might find it interesting as well.

Anyway, good luck and thanks for the info.

[WraithGlade]

For those of you who don't have any random note generation capabilities, I have a small program for generating random notes.

Here's the link: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/17915364/rand%20notes.exe

I wrote this program myself in C++. It's pretty small and simple. I wrote it a while back. It could be improved, but I think you might find it useful.

Basically it just brings up a command prompt window and asks you how many random notes you want to generate. Just type in the number you want when prompted and press enter.

The random notes will be in the form of the letter representations of notes on the 12-tone standard western scale. I.e. A, B, C, D, E, F, G, sharps, and flats.

Flats are represented by lowercase b and sharps are represented by the pound sign #. The program doesn't pay any attention to enharmonics, for simplicity sake. The program also doesn't tell you what octaves the notes are on, that's up to you to decide. Sorry, I just wrote up this program in like 10 to 30 minutes so it's not very full featured.

To get the text out of the console window you'll need to right click on the Windows command prompt and select "Mark" from the menu. Then click and drag with your mouse on the command prompt text to select a box of text you want and then press enter to copy it.

Then press Ctrl + V to copy paste the text into a document editor (e.g. notepad, Word, OpenOffice, etc) so that you can format it and print it out if you want to. Or you can just leave it all in the console window if you want.

With the generated output text as reference, you can write down MIDI notes into your host or sequencer.

The generator can also be used for practicing your piano skills a bit by seeing how fast you can press all of the notes (i.e. helping you figure out hand positioning for randomly generated note sequences for practice).

The program will quit when you "Press any key to continue...".

Other miscellaneous info: You'll have to restart the program every time you want to generate a new set of notes, so you may want to just generate a larger number of notes to avoid that. The randomization algorithm uses the system clock or the CPU tick count, I don't remember which. Each line of the text output has at most 24 notes on it and more lines are filled up until the requested number of notes has been generated.

Anyway, hope someone finds it useful. Maybe someday I'll make an updated more full featured version of it.

[Meffy]

I seem to recall reading somewhere that one of the old classical composers (as in Bach, Beethoven, or whoever it was) actually had a dice game for randomly generating music.

Mozart's publisher claimed that Wolfgang wrote the measures of minuet used in the best-known "musikalisches Würfelspiel" but there's no evidence he actually did. Whoever wrote the chunks, they still work:

http://sunsite.univie.ac.at/Mozart/dice/

[tattiemannie]

http://www.gustavodiazjerez.com/fractmu ... .html#What is FractMus

This is cool! As well as an educational tool re scales etc, it can generate some interesting loops, and because it's fun to play with, it will give you some ideas to play with. Whole 'compositions' are possible, but to call the music your 'own' you will need to take from it what you can/like.

I dont mind saying, I have exported chunks via midi file from this beast for inclusion in tracks on two albums.

It aint genius, and it aint particularly stable on some systems, but learn enough, and save regularly, and it will come in very handy indeed .. particularly if you have a bit of a block

[coquillo]

xoxos has a number of tools that you might enjoy.

http://www.kvraudio.com/get.php?mode=re ... 0&format=0

I particularly like Populos and Hyperion.

[jlocri]

Ha, that's kind of cool. But you're right, the phrasing is a little arabesque for me. I wouldn't use it though, randomness in music isn't my thing and this seems a little too "I, Robot" for me.

It's not really a tool or script, but back in my less creative days, I used to take little periods (like 3 or 4 notes) from other melodies and use them in my new melody. This seemed to work for me, and it's the basic idea behind Mozart's musical dice program. I'd post a link to it, but I'm too used to being autobanned for it for some reason.

[coquillo]

This seemed to work for me, and it's the basic idea behind Mozart's musical dice program. I'd post a link to it, but I'm too used to being autobanned for it for some reason.

You mean this?

"An interesting musical game, Musikalisches Würfelspiel (musical dice game) has often been attributed to Mozart. On this page you can download a free Windows program you can use to create hundreds of Minuets in the style of Mozart!

The basis of the musical dice game consists of 272 musical measures and a table of rules used to select specific measures given a certain dice roll. The result is a randomly selected 16 bar minuet and 16 bar trio."

http://www.amaranthpublishing.com/MozartDiceGame.htm

[HiEnergy]

I found another melody generator. Impro-Visor combines random and musical rules for spitting out jazzy licks that match a previously entered progression.

You can input a bunch of chords and have the program jam in different styles.

http://www.cs.hmc.edu/~keller/jazz/impro-visor/

Impro-Visor is freely available, cross-platform, open source and requires an installed Java runtime to function.

My favourite software for prototyping and composing music is still Synfire, but that's rather expensive.

[PugFace]

In my experience the best way to compose is... clear your head....dont but dont listen to any music what so ever for at least 12 hours and definitely not the radio. decide on a key. then put down the bass part of that progression. then immediately record what your fingers play. dont stop at recording until you are playing too many notes from your fingers. record both the initial phrase and then the next phrase of the melody in the same take then take the recorded part and listen and chop it up. add counter melodies where suited.
its not the notes its the spaces between the notes that count. random generators can work but play from the gut is much better. random generators dont take in to account that we need to be taken by the composer in the mood of the melody. its the difference between a poem and an instruction.

the best random generator is your fingers.

[jancivil]

I found another melody generator. Impro-Visor combines random and musical rules for spitting out jazzy licks that match a previously entered progression.

and you learned what, exactly, about what thought goes into the content of these 'jazzy licks', having a machine just spit 'em out for you?

[bailees7irish]

I found another melody generator. Impro-Visor combines random and musical rules for spitting out jazzy licks that match a previously entered progression.

and you learned what, exactly, about what thought goes into the content of these 'jazzy licks', having a machine just spit 'em out for you?

[tapper mike]

If you want to embrace the concept of writing music. Your first goal should be practice. Many think they don't have to work out scales patterns and progressions and somehow theory is going to come to the rescue. Theory is not a subsitute for technique. The stronger your abilities, the greater your confidence the more easily you'll be able to recognize shapes and patterns.
The more easily you recognize shapes and patterns in songs. The more you will be able to recreate them in a given genre.

Once you have a handle on the fundamentals of perfoming rhythmic patterns, and variations then you can move on to working out melodic lines. All the greats have two things in common. Impeccable metre. Key/chord conciousness.

Afterwards one studies style. If you want to learn study from those artists whom you wish to emulate. The best melodist software uses key principles of techniques by artists. Check out Band-In-A-Box it has a melodist function which creates melodies in styles of artists. It wont show you what they did on a particular performance it will show you how they might interpert a piece.
Learning a few licks along the way isn't a bad idea either.

[jancivil]

I found another melody generator. Impro-Visor combines random and musical rules for spitting out jazzy licks that match a previously entered progression.

and you learned what, exactly, about what thought goes into the content of these 'jazzy licks', having a machine just spit 'em out for you?

is this your idea of an actual answer to a question (intend to provoke thought)? In lieu of thought, strike the condescending pose...

[jancivil]

If you want to embrace the concept of writing music. Your first goal should be practice. Many think they don't have to work out scales patterns and progressions and somehow theory is going to come to the rescue. Theory is not a subsitute for technique. The stronger your abilities, the greater your confidence the more easily you'll be able to recognize shapes and patterns.
The more easily you recognize shapes and patterns in songs. The more you will be able to recreate them in a given genre.

Once you have a handle on the fundamentals of performing rhythmic patterns, and variations then you can move on to working out melodic lines. All the greats have two things in common. Impeccable metre. Key/chord conciousness.

Afterwards one studies style. If you want to learn study from those artists whom you wish to emulate. The best melodist software uses key principles of techniques by artists. Check out Band-In-A-Box it has a melodist function which creates melodies in styles of artists. It wont show you what they did on a particular performance it will show you how they might interpert a piece.
Learning a few licks along the way isn't a bad idea either.

Thank you.