Table Of ContentEduardo Reck Miranda Editor
Guide to
Unconventional
Computing for
Music
Guide to Unconventional Computing
for Music
Eduardo Reck Miranda
Editor
Guide to Unconventional
Computing for Music
123
Editor
Eduardo ReckMiranda
University of Plymouth
Plymouth
UK
ISBN978-3-319-49880-5 ISBN978-3-319-49881-2 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-49881-2
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Preface
Back in the late 1940s, scientists in Australia installed a loudspeaker on the CSIR
Mk1 computer, which was one of only a handful of electronic computers in the
world at the time. Programmers would use the loudspeaker to play a sound at the
end of their program to notify the operator that the machine had halted.
The field of Computer Music was born in 1951, when Geoff Hill, a mathe-
maticianwithamusicalupbringing,hadthebrilliantideaofprogrammingtheMk1
computer to play back an Australian folk tune for an exhibition at the inaugural
Conference of Automatic Computing Machines in Sydney. This is allegedly the
firsttimeacomputerproducedmusicliveforanaudience.Computershaveplayeda
pivotalpartinthedevelopmentofthemusicindustryeversince,andthistrendwill
most certainly continue.
Fromthevantagepointofaclassicalcontemporarymusiccomposer,itwouldbe
fair to assert that those classical composers who were interested in exploring the
potentialofcomputingtechnologyfortheirmétierhavebeenplayingaleadingrole
in the development of new music technology and the music industry since the
1950s. And as we shall see inthis book, we still are: a number of authors here are
either professional or amateur musicians.
Classical contemporary music may not always appeal to large audiences, but it
can most certainly impact on how music that is more amenable to mass con-
sumptionismade. The Beatles,for instance,areknownfor admiringthe music of,
and being influenced by, the highly innovative German composer Karlheinz
Stockhausen. They even put Stockhausen’s picture on the cover of their famous
Sgt. Pepper’s album.
Classical computer music, the genre of classical music in which computing
technologyplaysanimportantroleincompositionorperformance,orboth,isnow
firmly established. Anyone interested in predicting the future of pop music should
peep at the bold developments of classical computer music for clues.
Iwouldsaythatthefirstgrandmilestoneofclassicalcomputermusictookplace
in1957atUniversityofIllinoisatUrbana-Champaign,USA,withthecomposition
Illiac Suite by Lejaren Hiller. Hiller, then a professor of chemistry, collaborated
v
vi Preface
withmathematicianLeonardIsaacsontoprogramtheILLIACmachinetocompose
a string quartet. ILLIAC, short for Illinois Automatic Computer, was one the first
computers built in the USA. Hiller transcribed manually the outcomes from the
machine’s calculations onto a musical score for a string quartet: 2 violins, 1 viola
and 1 violoncello.
Various important inventions and developments took place since, notably the
inventionofthetransistorandsubsequentlythedevelopmentofthemicrochip.The
microchipenabledthemanufacturingofcomputersthatbecameprogressivelymore
accessible to a wider sector of the population, including, of course, composers.
The second grand milestone took place in the early 1980s at IRCAM in Paris,
with Répons, an unprecedented composition by the celebrated French composer
Pierre Boluez. IRCAM (Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/
Musique) is a renowned centre for research into music and technology founded
in 1977 by Boulez himself. Répons, for chamber orchestra and six solo percus-
sionists, was the first significant piece of classical music to use digital computing
technology to perform live on stage: the machine ‘listened’ to the soloists and
synthesizedaudibleresponsesonthespot,duringperformance.Inordertoachieve
this, Boulez used a pioneering computer music system, called 4X System, devel-
oped at IRCAM by Italian physicist Giuseppe Di Giugno and his team.
Répons and the 4X System represent the beginning of an era of increasingly
widespread use of digital computers to perform live on stage together with musi-
cians. Indeed, they mark the beginning of our present time, where personal
computers, laptops, notebooks, tablets and even smart phones are used in musical
composition and performance.
Whatisnext?Itisdifficulttopredictthenextmilestone,butitishighlypossible
that it will entail unconventional computing in many ways, hence the rationale for
putting together this pioneering book.
InFebruary2015,IsawthepremiereofmycompositionBiocomputerMusic,at
Peninsula Arts Contemporary Music Festival, in Plymouth, UK. Biocomputer
Musicwascomposedwiththefirstversionofanunprecedentedinteractivemusical
biocomputer that we are developing in my laboratory at Plymouth University’s
InterdisciplinaryCentreforComputerMusicResearch(ICCMR).Thebiocomputer
was implemented with living organic components, referred to as ‘biomemristors’.
The machine was set up to listen to the piano and generate responses in real time,
which were played back on the performer’s piano through electromagnets that set
thestringsintovibration(Fig.1).ThisworkisintroducedinChaps.2and8,anda
shortdocumentaryintroducingthisworkisavailableonline(Miranda2014).Andin
June 2016, my former Ph.D. student Alexis Kirke premiered his piece Superposi-
tionSymphonyatPortEliotFestival,inSt.Germans,aCornishvillagesituatedonly
14milesfromPlymouth.SuperpositionSymphonyisanamazingduetforasoprano
and a quantum computer. The voice of the singer was relayed live to a quantum
Preface vii
Fig.1 EdwardBraundandtheauthor(onthepiano)testingtheinteractivemusicalbiocomputer
intheICCMRlab
computer located at the University of Southern California, in Los Angeles, USA.
The machine listened to the singing and generated respective accompaniments,
which were sent back to loudspeakers in St. Germans for playback during the
performance. A movie illustrating this project is available online (Kirke 2016).
The field of Unconventional Computing for Music is rapidly emerging,
including a number of initiatives that were not necessarily thought of in terms of
unconventional computing as such, but rather in terms of unconventional inter-
facing, hacking and circuit bending. For instance, in Chap. 3, Berlin-based com-
poser and performer Marco Donnarumma introduces his work into biophysical
music. Donnarumma has been looking into creating computer music instruments
where the physical and physiological properties of the performers’ bodies are
interlacedwiththedevices’materialsandcomputationalproperties.AndinChap.5,
EzraTeboul,fromRensselaerPolytechnicInstitute,inTroy,NewYork,introduces
the intriguing world of silicon luthiers: developers of electronic and computer
music instruments with circuit bending and new interfacing ideas. These works
pointtoaharnessedconnectivitybetweenhumansandmachines,farbeyondofthe
connectivity provided by today’s keyboard–mouse–screen interfaces.
Thisbookbeginswithanintroductiontothefieldofunconventionalcomputing
byUniversityofYork’sSusanStepney(Chap.1)followedbyanintroductiontothe
field of unconventional computing and music (Chap. 2) by the ICCMR team.
Chapters 3–5 introduce the topics mentioned above: physical computing, silicon
luthiersandmusicwithquantumcomputing.Then,Chap.6,byMartinTrefzer,also
viii Preface
fromtheUniversityofYork,introducesthememristor:anewelectroniccomponent
thatisboundtorevolutionizehowcomputersarebuiltinthefuture.Next,Chaps.7
and8,byAndyAdamatzkyandhisteamattheUniversityoftheWestofEngland,
and the ICCMR team, respectively, introduce experiments and practical applica-
tions of memristors in music. Finally, ICCMR’s Alexis Kirke introduces IMUSIC,
anunconventionaltone-basedprogramminglanguage,whichenablesustoprogram
computers using musical phrases.
Target Audience
Postgraduatestudents,andresearchersinacademiaandprivatesectorwillfindhere
a valuable source of information for basic and applied research. Some of these
chapters may require advanced knowledge of mathematics and computing to fol-
low,butundergraduatestudentsincomputing,engineeringandmusicwillfindthis
book useful to gain an understanding of key issues in the field. It is recommended
for students aspiring to pursue postgraduate studies in computer music and asso-
ciated topics. By the end of this book, the reader will have gained first-hand
information about the exciting new field of Unconventional Computing for Music.
Plymouth, UK Eduardo Reck Miranda
References
Kirke, A. (2016). Superposition. Available on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-
S5hU4oMWag
Miranda,E.R.(2014).BiocomputerMusic:ACompositionforPiano&Biocomputer.Available
onVimeo:https://vimeo.com/111409050
Contents
1 Introduction to Unconventional Computing. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Susan Stepney
2 On Unconventional Computing for Sound and Music . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Eduardo R. Miranda, Alexis Kirke, Edward Braund
and Aurélien Antoine
3 On Biophysical Music . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Marco Donnarumma
4 The Transgressive Practices of Silicon Luthiers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Ezra Teboul
5 Experiments in Sound and Music Quantum Computing . . . . . . . . . 121
Alexis Kirke and Eduardo R. Miranda
6 Memristor in a Nutshell. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
Martin A. Trefzer
7 Physarum Inspired Audio: From Oscillatory Sonification to
Memristor Music. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
Ella Gale, Oliver Matthews, Jeff Jones, Richard Mayne,
Georgios Sirakoulis and Andrew Adamatzky
8 An Approach to Building Musical Bioprocessors
with Physarum polycephalum Memristors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
Edward Braund and Eduardo R. Miranda
9 Toward a Musical Programming Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
Alexis Kirke
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
ix
Contributors
AndrewAdamatzkyUnconventionalComputingCentre,UniversityoftheWestof
England, Bristol, UK
AurélienAntoineInterdisciplinaryCentreforComputerMusicResearch(ICCMR),
Plymouth University, Plymouth, UK
EdwardBraundInterdisciplinaryCentreforComputerMusicResearch(ICCMR),
Plymouth University, Plymouth, UK
Marco Donnarumma Berlin University of the Arts, Berlin, Germany
Ella Gale School of Experimental Psychology, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
Jeff JonesUnconventional Computing Centre, University ofthe West of England,
Bristol, UK
Alexis Kirke Interdisciplinary Centre for Computer Music Research (ICCMR),
Plymouth University, Plymouth, UK
Oliver Matthews Unconventional Computing Centre, University of the West of
England, Bristol, UK
Richard Mayne Unconventional Computing Centre, University of the West of
England, Bristol, UK
Eduardo R. Miranda Interdisciplinary Centre for Computer Music Research
(ICCMR), Plymouth University, Plymouth, UK
Georgios Sirakoulis Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Dem-
ocritus University of Thrace, Xanthi, Greece
Susan Stepney Department of Computer Science, University of York, York, UK
Ezra Teboul Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY, USA
Martin A. Trefzer Department of Electronics, University of York, York, UK
xi
