A Few Remarks on Algorithmic Composition.

Computer music is music that cannot be created without the use of computers. There are many examples of computer music that use the term in a less narrow sense, however. The performance of baroque music on digital equipment employs computers, but the very same compositions might be performed on other more suitable instruments. This article focuses on the use of computers for generating algorithmic compositions. I will define different categories of algorithmic compositions and discuss which of these deserve the designation computer music.

If one considers various methods of algorithmic composition, considerable importance can be allotted to differentiating between construction and resultant form, i.e., between compositional idea, its realization in the musical score, and its auditory perception. Computer-aided algorithmic composing consists of constructing or selecting algorithms to generate a composition. These constructions are then evaluated and assessed according to whether the resultant forms seem to work musically. To put it another way, computer-driven differentiation between algorithm and resultant--that is, the received form--is a peculiarity of computer-aided algorithmic composition. Only rarely is the process of generating the composition, and thus the construction of the algorithm, intentionally made visible.

The theory of algorithmic composition usually distinguishes between score synthesis (the computer-aided working out of a composition, usually for traditional acoustic instruments) and sound synthesis (the computer-aided working out of a synthetic sound that can only be heard through loudspeakers). This distinction has its roots in the traditional differentiation between score and instrument, but a computer-generated continuum between two different sounds, however, is both score and sound synthesis. In both types of synthesis, the appearance of events in time is structured, both globally (form) as well as locally (sound, timbre).

The present text is concerned for the most part with various methods of computer-aided score synthesis for orchestral instruments. It does not deal with the wide area of computer-aided interactive composition in real time, nor does it deal with algorithmic sound synthesis.

The term score synthesis is closely related to computer music, computer-aided composition, CAO (composition assistee par ordinateur, i.e., composition assisted by computer), and automatic composition or algorithmic composition. Algorithmic composition does not necessarily require the application of a computer. Algorithmic processes have also been shown to be at work in certain procedures in analog electro-acoustic music studios, where they were called semi-automatic and automatic composing (Stockhausen 1971). On the other hand, Arvo Part does not use a computer and calls those of his pieces in which a pattern is extended, shortened, or otherwise permutated according to an algorithm "computer music" (La Motte-Haber 1996a, p. 158; La Motte-Haber 1996b, p. 23). This illustrates how closely related both terms are.