We are free, from the shackles of the finite, and of the physical world. Sound now enjoys morphological freedom through a myriad of transformations. It is malleable to the utmost degree. We have at our disposal an astounding plethora of tools, with which we can manipulate and organise sound. This thesis project is a collection of musical materials that explore the idea of The Uncanny Valley, as it relates to music being real, fake or some strange combination of the two. This thesis project is primarily one in which I produce sound files. In a secondary capacity, I’m also producing a text file. In this text I aim to present some of my thoughts on how my work writing code and making music might be connected, in some hopefully interesting ways, to my field. I’m unlikely to be able to adequately convey my own origin myth. Instead I’ll focus on stories I’ve been told about music, throughout my life, inside and outside of academia. I have a strong suspicion that these stories have shaped my coming into being as a composer. However difficult the task of introspection, and ultimately to know one self proves to be, I at least regard these stories as a source for clues as to why I am driven to do the things that I do.

Symphony No. 1 is an orchestral composition for twenty-four instrumental groups without percussion instruments. It was composed with Algorithmic Composition System software, which gives driving forces for composition to the composer through the diverse compositional methods largely based on physical phenomena. The symphony consists of three movements. It lasts about sixteen minutes and twenty-six seconds--five minutes and twenty-two seconds for the first movement, five minutes and forty seconds for the second movement, five minutes and twenty-four seconds for the third movement. Most musical components in the first movement of the symphony are considered embryos, which gradually begin developing through the second and third movements.

Designs is an algorithmic composition for small orchestra. The main compositional process used involves the realization and implementation of various musical algorithms discussed in the book Composition with Pitch-Classes by theorist/composer Robert Morris.

... myriad carbon, myriad silicon ... is inspired by the ubiquitous presence of carbon and silicon, elements fundamental to both nature and technology. These elements, interwoven into our daily lives, are manifest in the natural world around us, in the technology we use, and within ourselves. This piece delves into the intersection of the natural and technological realms, fostering a dialogue that extends beyond grand narratives. It focuses on the everyday interactions between nature’s organic creations and human-made technology. The music reflects this interplay, fluidly transitioning between organic and mechanical sounds, thus embodying the dualistic nature of our environment. However, the essence of the piece goes beyond a simple dichotomy of nature versus technology, exploring the subtleties of contemporary composition. The piece unfolds as a process, revealing layers of complexity and subtlety, without making any definitive statements.

We investigate the properties of a new Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) for computer-aided composition called IPCS (pronounced “ipp-siss”) the Intermediate Performance Composition System which generates expressive performance as part of its compositional process, and produces emergent melodic structures by a novel multi-agent process. IPCS consists of a small-medium size (2 to 16) collection of agents in which each agent can perform monophonic tunes and learn monophonic tunes from other agents. Each agent has an affective state (an “artificial emotional state”) which affects how it performs the music to other agents; e.g. a “happy” agent will perform “happier” music. The agent performance not only involves compositional changes to the music, but also adds smaller changes based on expressive music performance algorithms for humanization. Every agent is initialized with a tune containing the same single note, and over the interaction period longer tunes are built through agent interaction. Agents will only learn tunes performed to them by other agents if the affective content of the tune is similar to their current affective state; learned tunes are concatenated to the end of their current tune. Each agent in the society learns its own growing tune during the interaction process. Agents develop “opinions” of other agents that perform to them, depending on how much the performing agent can help their tunes grow. These opinions affect who they interact with in the future. IPCS is not a mapping from multi-agent interaction onto musical features, but actually utilizes music for the agents to communicate emotions. In spite of the lack of explicit melodic intelligence in IPCS, the system is shown to generate non-trivial melody pitch sequences as a result of emotional communication between agents. The melodies also have a hierarchical structure based on the emergent social structure of the multi-agent system and the hierarchical structure is a result of the emerging agent social interaction structure. The interactive humanizations produce micro-timing and loudness deviations in the melody which are shown to express its hierarchical generative structure without the need for structural analysis software frequently used in computer music humanization.

The aim of this research study is to investigate different practical ways in which fractal geometry and self-similarity can be applied to art music, with reference to music composition and analysis. This specific topic was chosen because there are many misconceptions in the field of fractal and self-similar music. Analyses of previous research as well as the music analysis of several compositions from different composers in different genres were the main methods for conducting the research. Although the dissertation restates much of the existing research on the topic, it is (to the researcher‟s knowledge) one of the first academic works that summarises the many different facets of fractal geometry and music. Fractal and self-similar shapes are evident in nature and art dating back to the 16th century, despite the fact that the mathematics behind fractals was only defined in 1975 by the French mathematician, Benoit B. Mandelbrot. Mathematics has been a source of inspiration to composers and musicologists for many centuries and fractal geometry has also infiltrated the works of composers in the past 30 years. The search for fractal and self-similar structures in music composed prior to 1975 may lead to a different perspective on the way in which music is analysed. Basic concepts and prerequisites of fractals were deliberately simplified in this research in order to collect useful information that musicians can use in composition and analysis. These include subjects such as self-similarity, fractal dimensionality and scaling. Fractal shapes with their defining properties were also illustrated because their structures have been likened to those in some music compositions. This research may enable musicians to incorporate mathematical properties of fractal geometry and self-similarity into original compositions. It may also provide new ways to view the use of motifs and themes in the structural analysis of music. / Dissertation (MMus)--University of Pretoria, 2014. / lk2014 / Music / MMus / Unrestricted

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Thanks to the development of new technology, musical instruments are no more tied to their existing acoustic or technical limitations as almost all parameters can be augmented or modified in real time. An increasing number of composers, performers, and computer programmers have thus become interested in different ways of "supersizing" acoustic instruments in order to open up previously-unheard instrumental sounds. This leads us to the question of what constitutes a super instrument and what challenges does it pose aesthetically and technically? This work explores the effects that super instruments have on the identity of a given solo instrument, on the identity of a composition and on the experience of performing this kind of repertoire. The super instrument comes to be defined as a bundle of more than one instrumental lines that achieve a coherent overall identity when generated in real time. On the basis of my own personal experience of performing the works discussed in this dissertation, super instruments vary a great deal but each has a transformative effect on the identity and performance practice of the pianist. This discussion approaches the topic from the viewpoint of contemporary keyboard music, showcasing examples of super instrument compositions of the 21st century. Thus, the main purposes of this practise based research project is to explore the essence and role of piano or toy piano in a super instrument constellation, as well as the performer's role as a "super instrumentalist". I consider these issues in relation to case studies drawn from my own compositional work and a selection of works composed by Karlheinz Essl and Jeff Brown.

Os múltiplos trabalhos de sistemas multiagentes musicais realizados nos últimos anos demonstram o interesse crescente na pesquisa de sistemas de composição e de performance musical que utilizem a tecnologia de agentes computacionais, sendo que apresentam um interesse maior por aqueles sistemas que integram técnicas de composição algorítmica, componentes de vida artificial e interatividade. Observamos também que a maioria dos trabalhos existentes apresentam muitas limitações em termos de escopo e flexibilidade, normalmente apresentando codificação musical simbólica e a resolução de um único problema, sendo que a motivação é mais técnica do que musical. Nesse contexto, surgem arcabouços voltados à criação de sistemas multiagentes musicais, como o Ensemble e o Interactive Swarm Orchestra, oferecendo flexibilidade para a modelagem e implementação de sistemas desse tipo, diversificando tanto os tipos de aplicação, tendo um propósito composicional ou performático, como os tipos de codificação musical que podem ser utilizados. Partimos da aparição dessas ferramentas para estudar o agente musical a partir de uma perspectiva interna, focando nos seus raciocínios, que são processos que definem o comportamento do agente no ambiente virtual do sistema e que são fundamentais para determinar e melhorar o seu valor composicional. Os arcabouços estudados se diferenciam por permitir a utilização de áudio como possível formato de codificação musical, o aproveitamento da espacialização sonora e a exploração da interatividade nos aplicativos, seja esta apenas entre agentes computacionais ou entre agentes e usuários humanos. Pretendemos portanto, nessa pesquisa, abordar sistemas com essas características. Através de extensões nos arcabouços e estudos de caso com motivação estética pretendemos dar continuidade a esses projetos e ao mesmo tempo validar e divulgar a sua utilização entre os potenciais usuários das ferramentas, como compositores, músicos interessados em performance e outros entusiastas dos sistemas musicais interativos. / Multiple musical multiagent systems have been developed in the last years proving the increasing interest in composition and musical performance systems that exploit intelligent agents technology. Theres an special focus on systems that integrate algorithmic composition techniques, artificial life and interactivity. We can also observe that most of these existing projects show many flexibility and scope limitations, as they normally use symbolic musical notation and they solve a single issue or scenario, as well as they have a technical motivation rather than a musical one. In that context, some musical multiagent systems frameworks as Ensemble and Interactive Swarm Orchestra emerge, trying to help the modeling and development of this kind of musical systems, diversifying the applications\' types, as they can be composition problems or musical performances, and allowing the inclusion of other kind of musical content communication. Through these new tools we study the musical agent from an internal perspective, focusing on its reasoning components, processes that define the behavior of an agent on its system\'s virtual environment and that are essential to determine and improve its compositional value. The studied frameworks show unique features as they support audio as a possible musical notation format; they exploit sound spatialization and they work with interactivity in their applications, including agent-to-agent or human-to-agent interaction. We will explore this type of systems on this research. Through framework extensions and aesthetics-oriented study cases we pretend to continue these projects and validate them at same time. We also will contact potential users for these tools, as composers and musicians interested in performances or other musical interactive systems enthusiasts.

Techniques for algorithmic musical composition or generative music working directly with the frequencies of the sounds being played are rare today as most approaches rely on mapping of discrete states. The purpose of this work is to investigate how self organizing audio can be created in realtime based on pitch information, and to find methods that give both expressive control and some unpredictability. A series of experiments were done using SuperCollider and evaluated against criteria formulated using music theory and psychoacoustics. One approach was utilizing the missing fundamental phenomenon and pitch detection using autocorrelation. This approach generated unpredictable sounds but was too much reliant on user input to generate evolving sounds. Another approach was the Kuramoto model of synchronizing oscillators. This resulted in pleasant phasing sounds when oscillators modulating the amplitudes of audible oscillators were synchronized, and distorted sounds when the frequencies of the audible oscillators were synchronized. Lastly, swarming behavior was investigated by implementing an audio analogy of Reynolds’ Boids model. The boids model resulted in interesting independently evolving sounds. Only the boids model showed true promise as a method of algorithmic composition. Further work could be done to expand the boids model by incorporating more parameters. Kuramoto synchronization could viably be used for sound design or incorporated into the boids model.