[LAD] Music, Undecidability, and the tiling problem (was Re: update: OT-ish: realtime 2d placement algorithms :-/)

[Chris Cannam]

On Tue, May 25, 2010 at 9:07 PM, Folderol <folderol at ukfsn.org> wrote:
> On Tue, 25 May 2010 12:31:57 -0700
> Niels Mayer <nielsmayer at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Mathematics is fundamental to music -- everything from the
>> relationship of notes to frequency, to what people consider musical,
>> or rhythmic... has to do with math, group theory, etc.
>
> This is putting the cart before the horse. People were making music
> long before there was any remotest concept of mathematics. Many of us
> still work on the basis of just noodling about and 'ooo, that sounds
> nice' without the slightest thought of relationships etc.

I think the point Neils has is just that the outcome of your noodling
is somewhat independent of your explicit intention.  Notes that sound
satisfying together are probably going to sound satisfying largely
because of some intrinsic mathematical relationship, or at least
something that is probably open to analysis to some extent but that
you don't yourself understand or plan.  Quite an interesting
philosophical avenue here, and one that's fairly well trodden in other
fields (ask an English theory student about Wimsatt and Beardsley).

As an angle for compositional software, this suggests that if you can
begin to model what "actually happens", you may be able to help to
short-circuit your limited understanding of your own work.  The
problem with that (as I think Paul was saying?) is that as long as the
model can be comprehended, the departures from it will continue to be
more interesting than the model itself.

Excuse me, I've probably had a glass of interesting Croatian red too many.


Chris