Idea: create a guitar solo generator. What is the easiest chord progression to solo over? Pachelbel, Canon in D. Here is a very well-known example:
The first take was a pretty random canon generator. The solo guitar picked random notes within the chord that was currently playing. All the coding was done in ChucK then arranged and effected in Logic Studio (from Apple). Here is the attached file. Below is a sample of the solo generated with the first method:
The second take was much more structured. Different segments were created with different levels of intensity. The program would begin by randomly choosing segments from the lowest intensity level, and then randomly step up or down the intensity. Here is the attached file. Below is a sample of the solo generated with the second method:
OBSTACLES I encountered in my musical journey: for some reason, either Charles (ChucK) or my computer could not handle some operations that were more computationally intensive. Also, for some reason, in my latter canon generator it did not keep time very well even though mathematically the time adds up. Also, the obstacle of coming up with a way to randomly generate structured solos took some thought.
FUTURE DIRECTIONS
1. Create a GUI, transfer code over to Java
2. Make the solo more varied
3. Make the solo more structured, and less random: have the user specify an intensity arc, if you will, that the solo could follow
4. Find a way to introduce non-chordal tones without sounding bad