Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 7
The Extended Composer
Creative Reflection and Extension with Generative
Tools
Daniel Jones, Andrew R. Brown, and Mark d'Inverno
Abstract
This chapter focuses on interactive tools for musical composition which,
through computational means, have some degree of autonomy in the creative pro-
cess. This can engender two distinct benefits:
extending
our practice through new
capabilities or trajectories, and
reflecting
our existing behaviour, thereby disrupting
habits or tropes that are acquired over time. We examine these human-computer
partnerships from a number of perspectives, providing a series of taxonomies based
on a systems behavioural properties, and discuss the benefits and risks that such
creative interactions can provoke.
7.1 Introduction
One of the distinguishing features of human society is our usage of tools to aug-
ment our natural capabilities. By incorporating external devices into our activities,
we can render ourselves more quick, powerful, and dexterous, both mentally and
physically. We are effectively extending ourselves and our practices, temporarily
taking on the capabilities of our tools in a transient hybrid form (McLuhan
1964
,
Clark and Chalmers
1998
, Latour
1994
).
Recent advances in computational technology have resulted in software tools
whose flexibility and autonomy goes beyond anything previous possible, to the ex-
tent that the tools themselves might be viewed as creative agents. This class of tool
suggests an entirely new type of relationship, more akin to a partnership than to the
causally unidirectional usage of a traditional tool.
In this chapter, we direct particular attention to how the computer can be used as
a partner to augment the practice of musical composition. By “composition”, we are
