Computer-Generated Music

While music transcends its time, it eagerly adopts the current technology. Musicians, like anyone else, use new instruments and procedures to reach their desired goals. In the age of computers, this is producing some fascinating results. C omputer music has existed as a formal application of computer science for at least 35 years. The idea has existed much longer. Ada Lovelace suggested the use of machines in composition a century and a half ago. As far back as the Middle Ages, man merged technology and music in the form of clockworkmechanisms,carillons, and the like. The development of technology for fashioning pipes and mounting strings led to wind and string instruments, enriching the music of the day, just as computers are enriching modern music. The field of musical composition is changing dramatically. Fast, easily programmed computers allow the composer greater flexibility and a richer source of sounds. These advances result from a marriage of computer and musical expertise. Computer music has come to mean two things: the direct synthesis of sound by digital means and computer-assisted composition and analysis.