As an addendum to why trying to make computer models musically creative can be so disastrous, maybe the problem is we fail to understand what creativity is.

Scientists funded by the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) have found that, when jazz musicians are engaged in the highly creative and spontaneous activity known as improvisation, a large region of the brain involved in monitoring one’s performance is shut down, while a small region involved in organizing self-initiated thoughts and behaviors is highly activated.

Study: Prefrontal Cortex In Jazz Musicians Winds Down When Improvising [scientificblogging]

That’s just one study, and I won’t pretend to be an expert in neuroscience. But what the scientists are describing is awfully close to the nuanced way jazz musicians will describe improv. It’s not not thinking. But it’s also not self-monitoring. It’s something else.

Microsoft Research has done some amazing work; it doesn’t always move me to tears, but there’s some fantastic stuff that deserves real recognition. And MySong is … well, technologically impressive, if musically painful. It’s a sort of collision between AutoTune and Band-in-a-Box: it recognizes a melody as input, then harmonizes that melody.

The vocal input goes well, and illustrates the number of different inputs beyond the mouse you can expect in The Future. Here’s the problem: harmony is extraordinarily difficult to model on a computer because of the number of variables, the amount that’s driven by instinct and art. And let’s be blunt: it doesn’t work right.

In short: if you’re planning to build a Jerome Kern robot, the technology may not be there just yet.

Okay, first imagine that you can control drums with sound. Not a new idea; audio-driven software has been around for a while. Now imagine that the software is intelligent enough to learn from the sound input it hears. Bang a desk, clap your hands, hit your head against the wall, slap someone you don’t like repeatedly with a fish — it’ll adjust itself to the input. That’s the vision of a new project called BillaBoop.

The creator writes CDM to tell us more about it:

Hi, My name is Amaury Hazan. I’d like to introduce a software I have developed.

BillaBoop is a real-time audio driven drum controller which allows the user to control up to 3 drum instruments. The user can control any drum synth with the voice (beat box), or any object or musical instrument. Unlike other audio-driven systems wich require a lot of parameter tuning to be able to discriminate the sounds you are playing, BillaBoop incorporates an efficient Machine Learning component which enables the system to learn by demonstration.

Raymond Scott’s Electronium is one of the great, odd sound inventions of all time. Scott developed the machine as an automatic performance and composing machine, a great, mechanical algorithmic music creation device. For an official source of information, be sure to read up at the Raymond Scott site, which has this fantastic music demo:

Electronium Music Sample

The idea of the machine, with no keyboard and the ability to “automatically” create music, is still a bit radical today. The sonic results are as whimsical and fresh now as then. But it’s the underlying technology that’s impressive: the device “suggests” musical motives, and allows contrapuntal techniques and development of the materials into music. Not bad for the 1950s — and a lot more fun to listen to than a lot of supposedly more-sophisticated computer algorithmic music.

Motown got interested in the results, I think because it was the only hardware at the time to come with a DOOWAH control.

Raymond Scott was also a major inspiration for a young Robert Moog, a relationship described in Moog’s own words on the Raymond Scott website. In fact, had it not been for Scott apprenticing him, it’s possible Bob Moog would have stuck to Theremins and never gotten into the synth business.

The instrument survives, but sadly in non-working order, in the basement of Mark Mothersbaugh’s office. It’s bittersweet looking at the instrument through this video, posted in April, and not hearing it work. But before you despair, Mothersbaugh is promising to fix his Electronium. Let’s hope he does.