Melody Generating Software

messing around with software that generates melodies and chords for you sounds like something that could be fun for a short while, sort of like audio apps on iOS. it's fun to play around with for 30 mins or so, but i'd never do anything serious with it, and definitely never release anything that was generated for me.

that's just me though. melodies and chord progressions are the most entertaining parts of composing imo.

then again i haven't read the rest of the thread, just the topic title, and didn't even know there were software like this available until now so i might be missing something.

Hmm. Just write quarter note melodies. Easy as cake. Come up with a rhythm using the same note, so drum out the C key or something, then transpose the melody up and down until you get a nice melody you like. That's the easiest way I know of coming up with a melody.

It's not really about getting a computer to write music for you though. It's more like adjusting a set of parameters until something sounds good. At least that's my experience/technique.

  On 2/27/2015 at 11:06 PM, yikes said:

 

  On 2/17/2015 at 12:08 PM, rst said:

 

  On 2/16/2015 at 3:08 PM, yikes said:

i am curious as to why people would want to rely on software for THE MOST IMPORTANT PART of music composition....that which is supposed have emotion,exude personality,taste

 

OT, but i disagree with what you said there. THE MOST IMPORTANT PART of music composition....? and why is my music supposed to be/do/have anything?? supposed by who? you???

 

for the rest, see honestman's answer who's spot on.

feel free to make melody-less tracks!

no one is stopping you!

 

silly me for insinuating the part of the song 95% of the general non music making population remembers is the melody/hook and it's harmonies

in fact i don't think that's silly at all but very true. however, you may have insinuated a lot of things but what you said was that melody is the most important part of music composition period. i don't think this holds true for all music, that's all. in a lot of music traditions rhythm is viewed just as important as melody, while in some there is no concept of "harmony" etc.

also i have a knee jerk reaction of negation when somebody says art is supposed to be this and that, especially "emotion" (which can only exist in the listener anyway). didn't you ever get angry about ppl telling you music by, say, autechre was too cold and lacking in emotion and so on?

or somebody once told me about dropp "well i like the melody bc it's really beautiful, but i don't get how you can like all this noise (meaning the percussive elements)" - as if the track could be made better by removing its essence: contrast!

sorry for ranting. this way OT btw, the use of generative techniques does not diminish the relative importance of musical elements at all.

So, I made a max patch that is designed specially for creating melody, it falls in somewhere between generative and traditional step sequencing, have been using it for three months and I think the result is pretty good, way more practical than most generative programs I have used and made, because the step sequencing allows you to make the result musical. The below track is like 90% generated and then edited in Logic. I am thinking about making it a standalone app, do you guys think that will be a good idea? Will you use or pay for it?

[youtubehd]1UkjnxeFZ9I[/youtubehd]

pretty nice results, sounds overstepsy. as far as selling an app. totally you should, but there are probably already a lot of melody generating type apps for ipad out there.

  On 3/6/2015 at 6:28 AM, John Ehrlichman said:

pretty nice results, sounds overstepsy. as far as selling an app. totally you should, but there are probably already a lot of melody generating type apps for ipad out there.

Yes there are a lot of similar apps available, that is what I am concerned about. I mean, even though I think my app is different and better than most of them and has some functions that I have never seen anywhere else, I still don't see many people will use/buy it.

This track is influenced by oversteps but the program as far as I understand is a different approach from ae's, I remember they said they use markov chain in the AAA thread.

I have a question: why do you need soft to generate the melody instead of creating yourself? Is it for the days when you don't have a muse? Or is there some general purpose to it?

  On 3/10/2015 at 1:34 AM, nbven said:

I have a question: why do you need soft to generate the melody instead of creating yourself? Is it for the days when you don't have a muse? Or is there some general purpose to it?

again, and this response can be applied to data and yike's pov as well. This type of statement would only be said by someone who hasn't genuinely and seriously tried implementing any of the types of tools we're talking about here.

a better question would be, why wouldn't you be open to it? Nobody 'needs' to use these things, and i highly doubt anybody who does make music seriously with them relies heavily or at all on them. They are simply an additional tool that an artist can benefit from, just like the concept of a DAW editing system. Like i was saying in an earlier post, a lot of traditional musicians, especially in rock thought DAWs were totally sacrilegious for a while, and blatantly idiotic that anybody taking live performed music seriously would rely on them, this same sentiment also existed when drum machines first got popular, there was even an activist group that called themselves 'Drum machines have no soul' with a phone number you could call for moral support.

A lot of this talk about 'why would a musician want to have a software make melodies for them' is not only a total misunderstanding/ignorant point of view on what the software can do but also extremely closed minded and self-stifling very similar to people who rejected drum machines and DAW/digital editing. The only people being negatively impacted by this software are people who have a reactionary negative viewpoint of the concept itself with very little experiential knowledge.

  On 3/10/2015 at 1:40 AM, John Ehrlichman said:

 

  On 3/10/2015 at 1:34 AM, nbven said:

I have a question: why do you need soft to generate the melody instead of creating yourself? Is it for the days when you don't have a muse? Or is there some general purpose to it?

again, and this response can be applied to data and yike's pov as well. This type of statement would only be said by someone who hasn't genuinely and seriously tried implementing any of the types of tools we're talking about here.

 

a better question would be, why wouldn't you be open to it? Nobody 'needs' to use these things, and i highly doubt anybody who does make music seriously with them relies heavily or at all on them. They are simply an additional tool that an artist can benefit from, just like the concept of a DAW editing system. Like i was saying in an earlier post, a lot of traditional musicians, especially in rock thought DAWs were totally sacrilegious for a while, and blatantly idiotic that anybody taking live performed music seriously would rely on them, this same sentiment also existed when drum machines first got popular, there was even an activist group that called themselves 'Drum machines have no soul' with a phone number you could call for moral support.

 

A lot of this talk about 'why would a musician want to have a software make melodies for them' is not only a total misunderstanding/ignorant point of view on what the software can do but also extremely closed minded and self-stifling very similar to people who rejected drum machines and DAW/digital editing. The only people being negatively impacted by this software are people who have a reactionary negative viewpoint of the concept itself with very little experiential knowledge.

 

 

Yeah, that was definitely ignorant question, because I never tried/ used melody generating software. Other than that I'm totally agreed that software is very great for music creation not only by what it brings to music but also by it greatest flexibility of development. I'm not sure, and sorry for this behavior that I did not read the thread fully... so I'm not sure if anyone asked: how can I implement music-generating soft (completely generated by soft) in my compositions? This would be my more constructive question. You can easily advice me what soft to try so I can play around instead of huge explanation so I can get more of it. So far you just trying to prove that conservative people are dumb.

The way I use (slightly) generative processes is to introduce variation that I would otherwise not be able to achieve efficiently, ie. programming the notes of a melody but having the sequencing of the notes be either random or controlled by a sequence that is of a different length to the melody (ie., the melody has 6 notes, and the sequencer has 7 so when the sequencer gets to step 7 the melody is at step 1). That's about as far as I go, it's not really 'generative' because I'm not actually using any kind of formula or such to generate melodies but it produces ever-evolving sequences which would be too much of a pain to program manually.

So, I guess something like that, or using generative processes to add embellishments to an already-composed melody would be a pretty good starting point?

"ha! i was not expecting a response like this after yike's bs. great post btw john."

dude

at what point will you cease with your "bs"?

have fun with your computer generated melodies i am sure they will invoke a lot of emotion and you will get a deal with warp and be the next future brown or otto von sarach

I dunno, Oversteps was generatively sequenced and some of that is emotional as fuck imo

why not think about it like that: a creative process always consists of both trial and error. the most important part is to RECOGNIZE when something works. that's why ppl jam, for instance: to try out sth. and see if it works.

i don't think anybody here is talking about writing a piece of software and then use whatever output without discriminating. you can always choose which process / output you wanna use and dump the rest...

imo some of the greatest music was written by accident. ppl stumbled over sth. and found that it was good. i mean, listen to some of hendrix' riffs. you honestly think, the man was meticulously planning sth. like the opening to highway chile???

In modern music maybe, but in classical music age (pretty sure classical music fans are doing it now in modern age) I think composers created music with planning and precise control over notation, not always, but I still think they were really-really into creating note by note pieces. If you're listening Requiem by Bach, Firebird by Stravinsky, Elegia by Rachmaninoff, the Prince's Toys by Koshkin, I'm pretty sure all this composers done everything with notation and huge effort of planning every note positioning, obviously they had no DAWs, and doing it with just piece of paper and instrument in front of you requires lots of planning and notes tweaking, specially if you write an opera for whole orchestra. They could came up with main melody just by improvising stuff, but all the expressions, it really sounds truly planned.

Yeah but how many wattmers are composing music for orchestra?

well. i don't. do you?

edit: added rhetorical question.

There are people with huge theoretical knowledge in music who enjoy doing it. They mostly play classic though. And it is matter of how you want to do it, your own approach to music creation, and I have respect to any. Except some particular cases.

someone explain the difference between "generative" and "random"

and then

try to throw in "gee that sounds good" i'll use that one

and maybe tweak it a lil or not and leave it random

i think about bach.mozart,Coltrane,charlie parker,miles davis,aphex,early squarepusher,herbie hancock,james brown,david axelrod,etc etc and there is almost nothing random about any of it for large chunks of their career.

obviously Coltrane played a lot of insane free jazz for about 2-3 years which was improv and formless,miles did a little of this but not as much as trane

the difference between ae and aphex/pusha in many cases is huge

to me a lot of what ae does indeed sounds noodling and random a lot of the time and the end result is cool but for my money it's not as memorable or deliberate as hasty boom alert

afx never sounds random and to me that is the mark of quality

i have no problem with anyone doing they thing with random or generative stuff in some computer program

more power to you

but it is an easy way out,esp if you don't know theory or key changes and stay in one key for a whole song or not modulate or use modes or modular playing

but for me deliberate note choice/placement/rep's etc have stood the test of time and seem to have more impact to my head

i think a lot of "contemporary" electronic musicians have very little theory or technique or chops with an instrument at their disposal

and that is great but it also is lazy compared to music of the 50's 60's/70's

as someone pointed out "70% of this music is sound design"

yea ok,get a generative multilayered patch in absynth.reaktor/max/msp going and indeed it sounds cool with panning delay and reverb plugins

can't argue with the texture or tone of it

but how much of YOU is really behind the end product?

what we are really hearing is the geek who sat there for 6 months and wrote the code so you could bash some controller made in china on a computer made in china exported as a wav and voila you are now a so called sound designer/"artist" musician

random thought:

i like zappa and jaco a lot more than richard devine or clark and i think they have made more of a memorable career and catalog in their wake

but in the end for me the guys who have a natural innate ear for melody/harmony/musicality separate themselves from the cats with tons of gear and programs but fail to leave a lasting mark with memorable timeless melody/harmony/arrangements

no doubt it;s late and i am rambling like a twat

to each their own and it's totally subjective

your mileage may vary

there is no right or wrong

i just feel like randomizing stuff is an easy way out

it's like thse modern art dudes that frame a blank piece of white paper and sell it for 15 grand in a soho studio because dude is on meds and has a rep in the art world and might be known as "popular"and "it"

to me he is a talentless hack that couldn't render a portrait of yer mum if his life depended on it

I think process was indeed a central aspect to all the classic & great artists you mention. And most of them willingly discussed process openly. You're still allowed to focus only on the end product if you like, but I think a lot of insight/fun/appreciation is missed in that case.

Anyway, shit music is shit music. Great music is great music. But sometimes shit music has some kind of redeeming side to it, be it charm, intent, obscenity, comical value. Or to the nerds - an interesting technical aspect.

  On 3/11/2015 at 6:13 AM, yikes said:

someone explain the difference between "generative" and "random"

and then

try to throw in "gee that sounds good" i'll use that one

and maybe tweak it a lil or not and leave it random

Hey Bro, I understand why you feel this way, but the fact is that no matter you like it or not, the technology is already here, if the profit will be enough, there will be countless generative or whatever programs that can make music. I have no degree in computer and no background in programming and music and even I can make a generative program can generates ok result with features like change key/scale whenever you want, not to mention the nerds at top schools.

Like you said, it is an easy way out, but I just don't see anything wrong with that, and I am sure making music has been / and will be easier and easier, it is a fact. I think this is the same with painting and even film making, I mean, you can make a ok film by just using your cellphone and a computer which is not possible 20 years ago.

As far as I know about the current AI study, to make a program that makes good popular music is just a piece of cake, some big companies and universities are making programs can learn like human, and that means computer will do almost everything.

So, if you are not happy with this, you can write letters to those universities and companies to stop them, stop those scientists and mathematicians from discovering such technology, stop the nature for allowing this kind of thing to exist, or just learn something new like google the term generative and random, they are all well explained in wiki.

One word - 'Iamus':

"This post is hidden because you have chosen to ignore posts by Mesh Gear Fox. View it anyway?"

ummm no thanks

it's most likely a bland retort with little forethought or depth

and is also most likely passively combative

lol

lol