linas_pl

Had a talk with an Aristotelian philosopher. I told him about harmonimetry, the deeper sense, that I see in algorithmic music, and other things alike. He listened carefully, but objected then, that it's impossible to imitate true live music, using mathematical formulas.

Why not? I answered. They create algorithmic music.

Not exactly, he replied. They can call it music, if they want, but this music lacks at least naturalness.

The answer was easy for me. Why did he think that, that all this took place because of some inescapable property of algorithmic music and not because algorithmic composers are not sure how to generate natural music. So algorithmic music lacks naturalness and it will always do?

Yes, it will, he nodded.

OK, but your arguments against algorithmic music aren't complete. Handwriting is more natural than typing or printing, but it doesn't mean, that the possibility to have typed or printed texts doesn't exist, and equally it doesn't mean, that a printed book can't aesthetically surpass a handwritten book. Finally, we came to a conclusion, that music more needs aesthetical dimension than naturalness, and that aesthetics can mask the lack of naturalness, as in printed books, – but he still rejected the possibility to get the same result in algorithmic music.

The discussion has ended. I no way doubt in the possibility and the potential of harmonimetry after it, but why some people think so much differently?

My possible answer seems to reveal something in the Aristotelianist tradition of thinking. This tradition divides everything into the form and the essence. Although secondary form are known in it, it hardly distinguishes information from other kinds of the form. Hence, this thinking often skips the stage of sending and getting information, especially in such a vivid thing as sound.

An aristotelianist sees a sound as an explication of sound source, that has some cloned essence from this source. This essence is killed, if one damages the information, suggests he. That's why some medieval researchers tried to bottle (!) sound during their experiments. In contrast, the researchers of that time didn't foresee sound recording, which in reality isn't a sophisticated method, as they imagined, that it was impossible to record sounds from different sources to a single track. They might suggest, that every sound needed a separate container for its essence.

But we know more nowadays. Endless summing up of different waves in space teaches us, that information probably hasn't any essence until it is decoded. Just that some things and environments have a capability to froze in, to retain information. And, I think, it's very easy to suppose this idea, when you are a physicist, an engineer or a computerist, but it's very hard to deal with it, when you are a humanitarian with the traditional background of thinking.

The harmonimetry community doesn't advertise any sound synthesis software or hardware on its page. There are many variants of sound synt. languages and other soft, that can be used to implement respective models. This disclaimer is necessary, as I have already mentioned Csound synthesis language here.

It's wonderful, how much human imagination is inclined to suggest fantastical visions as something objective. And we shouldn't take as a surprise, that, for example, Aristotle taught in his speculative science of nature a number of things, that are too different from the objective reality. Today Aristotelian science of nature is far back, but this phenomenon is still present in many intellectual activities.

All the idea of harmonimetry have started, when I tried to develop a minor method for musical sound synthesis. The idea was to employ sound tuning not with the single pitch dimension, but with two dimensions, the pitch + another. The result was interesting, and I put some examples of my experiments on Jamendo.

People, that listened from Jamendo, obviously wanted to hear music, but in my case they did hear God knows what. I never explained, that the example was put in order to firm the idea and my authorship of it, and not to entertain listeners or to share my feelings with them. Yes, I was a twister, and listeners returned me not very pleasant comments in change.

Yet the music wasn't uninteresting at all. Listen it, please. But I synthesize no more such tight pieces, full of anxiety, not obviously from Bach, but from my interpretation.

One example doesn't represent the whole harmonimetry. Thousands different examples are possible in it and all they are required to make sensual portrait of harmonimetry.

Even my current algorithmic model doesn't reach the limits of the core theory, rendering still to similar examples, and we still don't have any more or less decent musical representation. But just an example is possible.

That's written after a new example was added.