Iamus (album)

Last updated
Iamus
File:Iamus (album).jpeg
Studio album by
Released2012
Recordedby London Symphony Orchestra with the Melomics Ensemble
Genre Contemporary Classical Music
Length51:00
Label Melomics Records

Iamus is the first studio album composed using Iamus, a computer cluster designed by the University of Malaga which creates contemporary classical music. The pieces are composed using melomics computational system, and are entirely computer generated, with no human input.

Contents

Overview

The compositions were composed using a genomic process which creates music and converts it to standard musical notation, to be utilized by live musicians for performance and editing.

Iamus is arguably the first complete album to be composed solely by a computer and recorded by human musicians. [1] This has generated a controversial discussion about the nature of artistic expression not only in music, but in many performing and visual arts. Tom Service, in reference to the piece "Hello World!", stated, "Iamus's Hello World... ought to pose existential questions about the integrity of musical composition, to blow holes in the fallacy that every note a human composer writes comes from a wellspring of emotion and deep thought unique to our consciousness." [2]

Philip Ball, prolific science author, has written a piece on the album in the interdisciplinary science journal Nature , about Iamus and its role with present methods of music composition. [3]

Track listing

No.TitleLength
1."Tránsitos I"6:30
2."Tránsitos II"6:23
3."Nasciturus"5:09
4."Alphard"3:30
5."Kinoth"5:45
6."Colossus"5:23
7."Hello World!"8:08
8."Ugadi I"3:23
9."Ugadi II"2:48
10."Mutability"4:00

Related Research Articles

Computer music is the application of computing technology in music composition, to help human composers create new music or to have computers independently create music, such as with algorithmic composition programs. It includes the theory and application of new and existing computer software technologies and basic aspects of music, such as sound synthesis, digital signal processing, sound design, sonic diffusion, acoustics, electrical engineering and psychoacoustics. The field of computer music can trace its roots back to the origins of electronic music, and the first experiments and innovations with electronic instruments at the turn of the 20th century.

Electronic music is a genre of music that employs electronic musical instruments, digital instruments, or circuitry-based music technology in its creation. It includes both music made using electronic and electromechanical means. Pure electronic instruments depended entirely on circuitry-based sound generation, for instance using devices such as an electronic oscillator, theremin, or synthesizer. Electromechanical instruments can have mechanical parts such as strings, hammers, and electric elements including magnetic pickups, power amplifiers and loudspeakers. Such electromechanical devices include the telharmonium, Hammond organ, electric piano and the electric guitar.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Philip Glass</span> American composer (born 1937)

Philip Glass is an American composer and pianist. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century. Glass's work has been associated with minimalism, being built up from repetitive phrases and shifting layers. Glass describes himself as a composer of "music with repetitive structures", which he has helped evolve stylistically.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Musical composition</span> An original musical piece, or the process of creating a new piece

Musical composition can refer to an original piece or work of music, either vocal or instrumental, the structure of a musical piece or to the process of creating or writing a new piece of music. People who create new compositions are called composers. Composers of primarily songs are usually called songwriters; with songs, the person who writes lyrics for a song is the lyricist. In many cultures, including Western classical music, the act of composing typically includes the creation of music notation, such as a sheet music "score," which is then performed by the composer or by other musicians. In popular music and traditional music, songwriting may involve the creation of a basic outline of the song, called the lead sheet, which sets out the melody, lyrics and chord progression. In classical music, orchestration is typically done by the composer, but in musical theatre and in pop music, songwriters may hire an arranger to do the orchestration. In some cases, a pop or traditional songwriter may not use written notation at all and instead compose the song in their mind and then play, sing or record it from memory. In jazz and popular music, notable sound recordings by influential performers are given the weight that written or printed scores play in classical music.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kaija Saariaho</span> Finnish composer

Kaija Anneli Saariaho is a Finnish composer based in Paris, France. During the course of her career, Saariaho has received commissions from the Lincoln Center for the Kronos Quartet and from IRCAM for the Ensemble Intercontemporain, the BBC, the New York Philharmonic, the Salzburg Music Festival, the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, and the Finnish National Opera, among others. In a 2019 composers' poll by BBC Music Magazine, Saariaho was ranked the greatest living composer.

David Cope is an American author, composer, scientist, and former professor of music at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC). His primary area of research involves artificial intelligence and music; he writes programs and algorithms that can analyze existing music and create new compositions in the style of the original input music. He taught a summer workshop in algorithmic computer music that was open to the public as well as a general education course entitled Artificial Intelligence and Music for enrolled UCSC students. Cope is also co-founder and CTO Emeritus of Recombinant Inc., a music technology company.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tod Machover</span> American classical composer

Tod Machover, is a composer and an innovator in the application of technology in music. He is the son of Wilma Machover, a pianist and Carl Machover, a computer scientist.

Evolutionary music is the audio counterpart to evolutionary art, whereby algorithmic music is created using an evolutionary algorithm. The process begins with a population of individuals which by some means or other produce audio, which is either initialized randomly or based on human-generated music. Then through the repeated application of computational steps analogous to biological selection, recombination and mutation the aim is for the produced audio to become more musical. Evolutionary sound synthesis is a related technique for generating sounds or synthesizer instruments. Evolutionary music is typically generated using an interactive evolutionary algorithm where the fitness function is the user or audience, as it is difficult to capture the aesthetic qualities of music computationally. However, research into automated measures of musical quality is also active. Evolutionary computation techniques have also been applied to harmonization and accompaniment tasks. The most commonly used evolutionary computation techniques are genetic algorithms and genetic programming.

Biomusic is a form of experimental music which deals with sounds created or performed by non-humans. The definition is also sometimes extended to include sounds made by humans in a directly biological way. For instance, music that is created by the brain waves of the composer can also be called biomusic as can music created by the human body without the use of tools or instruments that are not part of the body.

Artificial intelligence and music (AIM) is a common subject in the International Computer Music Conference, the Computing Society Conference and the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence. The first International Computer Music Conference (ICMC) was held in 1974 at Michigan State University. Current research includes the application of AI in music composition, performance, theory and digital sound processing.

Alexis Kirke is a composer and filmmaker known for his interdisciplinary practice. He has been called "the Philip K. Dick of contemporary music". Alexis is British and lives in Plymouth, in South West England. Alexis says he takes his inspiration from both the Arts and from Science/Technology – and has two doctorates – one from each of those Faculties at Plymouth University. In particular, his highest profile work has been motivated by interests in quantum mechanics, marine science, stock markets, and artificial intelligence. Alexis is senior research fellow at the Interdisciplinary Centre for Computer Music Research at the Plymouth University, and is composer-in-residence for the Plymouth Marine Institute.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Melomics</span> System for the automatic composition of music (

Melomics is a computational system for the automatic composition of music, based on bioinspired algorithms.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Iamus (computer)</span> Music composition computer at Universidad de Málaga

Iamus is a computer cluster located at Universidad de Málaga. Powered by Melomics' technology, the composing module of Iamus takes 8 minutes to create a full composition in different musical formats, although the native representation can be obtained by the whole system in less than a second. Iamus only composes full pieces of contemporary classical music.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hello World! (composition)</span>

"Hello World!" is a piece of contemporary classical music for clarinet-violin-piano trio composed by Iamus Computer in September 2011. It is arguably the first full-scale work entirely composed by a computer without any human intervention and automatically written in a fully-fledged score using conventional musical notation. Iamus generates music scores in PDF and the MusicXML format that can be imported in professional editors such as Sibelius and Finale.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Melomics109</span> Music composition computer at Universidad de Málaga

Melomics109 is a computer cluster located at Universidad de Málaga. It is part of the Spanish Supercomputing Network, and has been designed to increase the computational power provided by Iamus. Powered by Melomics' technology, the composing module of Melomics109 is able to create and synthesize music in a variety of musical styles. This music has been made freely accessible to everyone.

<i>0music</i> 2014 studio album by Melomics109

0music is the second album produced with Melomics technology. While the first one is a compilation of contemporary pieces fully composed by Iamus, 0music compiles pieces of popular genres, composed and interpreted without any human intervention by Melomics109, a computer cluster hosted at the University of Malaga. The pieces in this album, and all the production of Melomics109, is distributed under CC0 licensing, and it is available in audible and editable (MIDI) formats.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Francisco José Vico Vela</span>

Francisco José Vico Vela is a scientist and engineer who is a full professor of artificial intelligence at the University of Malaga. As a researcher, Vico is founder and head of the Biomimetics and EdTech research groups at the University of Malaga, and founder and CEO of the university spin-offs Melomics Media and Digitomica as an entrepreneur. His work is mostly known for using evolutionary computation in the field of automated computer composition and industrial design.

References

  1. "Computer composer honours Turing's centenary". New Scientist. 5 July 2012.
  2. Service, Tom (1 July 2012). "Iamus's Hello World review". The Guardian. Retrieved 2 July 2012.
  3. Ball, Philip (2012). "Algorithmic Rapture". Nature. 188: 456.