Calgary musician develops an interactive musical algorithm
Invention is the prodigal child of necessity. Ivan Reese’s band dissolved but instead of mourning its lost potential he began dreaming up his ideal bandmate: A computer.
“I don’t want to do music where I have to depend on other people” says Reese a 24-year-old Calgary musician.
Playing solo he says can’t create the same dynamic and complex array of sounds that can be achieved when playing with others. So Reese pulled on his computer science degree — and his experience programming — to create an interactive algorithm to accompany him onstage as part of Epcor’s 2011 Soundasaurus experimental music festival. The event will be Reese’s last public performance as for the time being he is internalizing his music and changing ventures to start up a video game company.
“When I play music on an instrument this program will react get excited and respond to it” says Reese.
The algorithm will listen to Reese play through a series of microphones onstage and in the audience. If it likes a particular sound or series it will record it and manipulate the sound in response. “Since it’s a computer it doesn’t have taste” says Reese. “The challenge is in teaching it to know what combinations of elements make for good taste. It also has to know music to do that.”
The algorithm is programmed to stretch pull and manipulate the sound it hears to provide variety in the show. Instead of pulling on pre-created loops events and samples which often become formulaic and limiting Reese says his algorithm will spontaneously create original sounds. “Musicians become slaves to what the machines let them get away with” says Reese.
Still no matter how many rehearsals Reese and the algorithm have before his show plenty of uncertainty remains.
“We’ll both know what the plan is” says Reese. “However if it decides to play back the sounds it will also react to what I play next as if in a band.”
Reese will take to the stage in honour of mathematician teacher and individualist Mary Everest Boole. Boole (1832 -1916) is known for her innovative teaching philosophies that pair mathematics with childhood activities such as curve stitching. Though controversial for a woman of her time her interest extended beyond mathematics to Darwinism philosophy and psychology.
She received private math tutoring until the age of 11 when she moved to England and continued self-educating in science and math. That very appetite for knowledge — and her willingess to challenge her era’s social norms — is what inspired Reese.
“When you’re young you have all these brilliant ideas and when you’re old and have a beard your ideas are dull” he says. “I’ve got a few tricks up my sleeve and I might not even know what I’m going to do until the night of the show.”
