Rediscovering Xenakis: Decoding the Free Stochastic Music Program's Output File

Gerber J. Rediscovering Xenakis: Decoding the Free Stochastic Music Program's Output File. In: Express Paper. Audio Engineering Society; 2024.pp. 268:1-. Available from: https://aes.org/publications/elibrary-page/?id=22726

@inproceedings{Gerber2024_22726,
  author = {Gerber, Jason},
  title = {{Rediscovering Xenakis: Decoding the Free Stochastic Music Program's Output File}},
  pages = {268:1-},
  year = {2024},
  month = sep,
  publisher = {Audio Engineering Society},
  url = {https://aes.org/publications/elibrary-page/?id=22726}
}

TY  - CPAPER
TI  - Rediscovering Xenakis: Decoding the Free Stochastic Music Program's Output File
AU  - Gerber, Jason
SP  - 1
M1  - Paper 268
PY  - 2024
DA  - 2024/09/27
UR  - https://aes.org/publications/elibrary-page/?id=22726
PB  - Audio Engineering Society
LA  - en
AB  - Composer Iannis Xenakis (1922-2001), in his book Formalized Music (1963), includes a piece of Fortran IV computer code which produces a composition of stochastically generated music. This early example of indeter-minate music made by a computer was in fulfillment of his goal of creating a musical composition of minimum constraints by letting the computer stochastically generate parameters. Stochasticity is used on all levels of the composition, macro (note density and length of movements) and micro (length of notes and pitches). This paper carefully analyzes the output composition and the variations the program might produce. My recent and successful attempts to convert these compositions into Standard MIDI format are then presented in order to promote their preservation and increase their accessibility. My actions to preserve the Free Stochastic Music Program is beneficial to understand one of the first examples of indeterminate computer music, with similar techniques being found in modern day composition and music creation software.
ER  -