The music business is almost collapsed. After Napster came in, everybody seems to have an interest in fighting the piracy. That to me seems just as stupid as trying to build a house using marshmallows instead of wall bricks. So, in order to survive, major record companies have to build real celebrity phenomena that would clearly put the music content aside, to push the image of the artist before his/her message. Look yourself around, artists are being always more provocative and graphics of their albums are so eye catching and sparkling it seems to look at a jewlery advertising. Of course, that is an understatement and therefore should not be the focus of my thoughts.
Instead I was about to ask myself and to ask you, my dear readers, what will be the music of the future? Well, the ones among you who are starting to know my personal preferences through this blog will understand why the answer for me could be just one:
algorithmic composition and generative music.
To be very brief and simple, it is computer generated music. Nothing very new actually, but something that is getting more and more interesting. Basically it is software based, just as the majority of music that's recorded nowadays, but it is the software that autmatically generates melodies, notes intensity and tone, leaving the user the possibility to slightly modify them. Any change the user does will affect the algorithm that generates sound, resulting in changes in the melody, tone and/or pitch of the played note. But I'm probably getting too much technical here so...
Let's try to let your immagination run free for once in a lifetime, would you mind?
Ok then. Now imagine computers being able to compose listeneable music, generated via algorithms. Algorithm generated music is already a reality and I think this is a new, future perspective to music. Innovative players and music artists wouldn't no more be forced (and that is already happening) to get a diploma and to become experts of their instrument(s). That's what I love about technology, that it "steals" an exclusive knowledge to make it general and available for piotentially everyone. It will be a new way of making music that could cover all of the previous genres (there are a lot of researchers experimenting with algorithmic composition and acoustic instruments out there) and even create new forms of sounds and rythms.
These are just a few examples of what can be done today.
Modern and future algorithms are and will be more focused on making listeneable music and THAT (to me) is the real new music frontier.
Stay tuned!
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