Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
become aware that there are birds” (Eno 1996b, 3). Again in this piece, the
composer specifies the initial conditions for a performance—the selection of
the taped phrase, the use of two recorders, and then “rides the dynamics of
the system”—in this case the imperfection of the recorders that leads them to
drift out of synchronization, rather than the idiosyncratic choices of human
musicians—to produce the actual work.
Eno then moves on to one of his own early post-
Brain
pieces composed in
this way, from
Music for Airports
. This consists of just three notes, each repeat-
ing at a different interval from the others—something like 23 1/2, 25 7/8, and
29 15/16 seconds, according to Eno. The point once more is that the composer
defines the initial conditions, leaving the piece to unfold itself in time, as the
notes juxtapose themselves in endless combinations (Eno 1996b, 4).
In his talk, Eno then makes a detour though fields like cellular automata
and computer graphics, discussing the endlessly variable becomings of the
Game of Life (a simple two-dimensional cellular automaton, developed by
John Conway: Poundstone 1985), and simple screen savers that continually
transform images arising from a simple “seed.” In each case, unpredictable
and complex patterns are generated by simple algorithms or transformation
rules, which connects back to Eno's then-current work on a musical genera-
tive system—a computer with a sound card. Eno had contrived this system
so as to improvise probabilistically within a set of rules, around 150 of them,
which determined parameters such as the instruments and scales to be em-
ployed, harmonies that might occur, and steps in pitch between consecutive
notes.
74
As usual, one should listen to a sample of the music produced by this
system, but at least Eno (1996b, 7) found that it was “very satisfying,” and
again we can see how it exemplifies the idea of riding the dynamics of what
has by now become a sophisticated algorithmic system.
Thus the basic form and a sketchy history of Brian Eno's ambient and gen-
erative music, and I want to round off this chapter with some commentary
and a little amplification. First, back to Roxy Music. Eno does not include his
time with Roxy in any of his genealogies, and one might assume a discontinu-
ity between his Roxy phase and his later work, but the story is more interest-
ing than that. Eno played (if that is the word) the electronic synthesizer for
Roxy Music and, as Pinch and Trocco (2002) make clear in their history of the
synthesizer, it was not like any other instrument, especially in the early “ana-
log days.” In the synthesizer, electronic waveforms are processed via various
different modules, and the outputs of these can be fed back to control other
modules with unforeseeable effects. As Eno wrote of the EMS synthesizer, for
example, “The thing that makes this a great machine is that . . . you can go
