Not at all what I Intended

I have learned a lot over the past few months about generative and algorithmic music. I had studied the topic of generative music back in the early 2000's when Fractal music was rising to popularity. I didn't like the "music" that I created with the tools of the time, so I put it aside hoping to one day revisit the topic.

A few months ago, when I started my Intentional Music project, I wanted a way to create music with computer code by defining my "intents" and then writing an algorithm that would process those intents to generate long-form ambient music.

It turns out that such an approach, while creating some interesting sounds, didn't quite do what I expected. I ended up spending a lot of time manipulating the results of the algorithm to suit my tastes. In other words, I was using traditional composing methods within my digital audio workstation to make it into music that I wanted to hear. This taught me that you can get a lot of power by starting with the algorithmically generated music and then forming it in the DAW.

I have also been working on more traditional music, composed entirely by me. One piece, titled "Sadre's Eternal Gift", is dedicated to my wife. It is available on Bandcamp now.

The other one, titled "Waning Dilemma", will be released this weekend. Here is the artwork that I made for the single.

Honestly, it felt good to be back in the DAW writing music the traditional way again. I write code at work all day and it seemed like I had just found a way to turn music into work. Don't get me wrong, I like writing code, and I love my job, but doing it all the time was not my idea of fun. I write music to relax and so that I have something that I can listen to when I'm done. Thinking that I could write a program to do it for me was a fallacy.