These proto-melodies demonstrate key signatures other than C major.

(Although as you can see they are still scored with the C major key signature. It would be easy enough to create the score with the correct key signature but I want to re-structure my code to make it more maintainable and extendable and will add a method to print the correct ket signature when I do this.)

D Major, 1 Octave Range, 4/4 Time, 4 Bars:

Magical Muzak Maker - Proto-melody 7

F Major, 1 Octave Range, 4/4 Time, 4 Bars:

Magical Muzak Maker - Proto-melody 8

The main point behind in generating these two proto-melodies was to check that sharps and flats were inserted properly for Lilypond, the scoring tool. In the case of F Major it took a few attempts before a melody containing the B flat was generated. This raises the question; how can you tell the difference between a melody generated in C Major and a melody generated in F Major containing no B flats … especially when both are scored using the C Major key signature?

Taking this further, how can you tell the difference between a melody in C Major and a melody in A Minor or the D Dorian mode? One of the, I think, more reasonable goals of this Magical Muzak Maker project is to come up with a system that might give an aspiring and learning musician an idea of what different keys and different modes sound like as an inspiration to their own musical endeavours. Not much good if you can’t tell the difference between them.

I am fairly sure that when I add some harmony generating features the nature of the different keys and modes may shine through. However I think I need to add some weighting to the note selection so that melodies tend to start on the root note of the scale, or maybe some other specific intervals.

In my more ambitious moments I start planning bringing together melodies generated by this Magical Muzak Maker into something actually resembling music. For this to happen I think I am going to have to guide the melody generation to try and force a resolution at the end (or at least have the option of trying to enforce this).

I do want to keep the process as random as possible but it is also interesting discovering how much you have to constrain the process before something worthwhile pops out.

If on the very rare chance either of these melody is not original I would be interested to find out. If either of these melody plagiarises your own music then apologies … but well, in that case your music could have been written by a very simple pseudo-random alogrithm.

3/4 Time:

Magical Muzak Maker - Protomelody 4

5/4 Time:

C major, 5/4, 4 bars, 1 octave

6/8 Time:

Magical Muzak Maker - Proto-melody 6

If on the very rare chance any of these melody is not original I would be interested to find out. If any of these melody plagiarises your own music then apologies … but well, in that case your music could have been written by a very simple pseudo-random alogrithm.

Firstly a four bar melody in C major over one octave in 4/4 time:

Magical Muzak Maker - Proto-melody 2

Secondly, another four bar melody in C major and 4/4 time, this time using a range of 3 octaves:

Magical Muzak Maker Version - Proto-melody 3

One thing I’ve noticed from these melodies (and many of the others generated while bug fixing) is the apparently too common insertion of very long notes. Cosmetically these could be improved in the score by using dotted notes in the ties, which should be fairly easy to implement, but I’m not too worried about that aspect. What I am slightly concerned about is that, although I don’t think the long notes are chosen any more frequently than any of the other note lengths, when one or two long notes are chosen they tend to dominate the resulting melody too much. For the next version I will add an option to weight the note selection towards the shorter notes.

For information, the current version of the Magical Muzak Maker (Alpha 1) can select notes and rests of the following lengths:

Whole – Semibreve
Half – Minim
Quarter – Crotchet
Eigth – Quaver
Sixteenth – Semiquaver

The plan is future versions will add further shorter lengths and “in-between” lengths such as dotted notes, triplets and so on.

If on the very rare chance either of these melody is not original I would be interested to find out. If either of these melody plagiarises your own music then apologies … but well, in that case your music could have been written by a very simple pseudo-random alogrithm.

Magical Muzak Maker Proto-melody 1

I am calling this a proto-melody as I am still at a very early stage in writing and testing the code. However as this is the first actual output I’ve generated I’m a little proud.

This was generated using the current default settings of the Magical Muzak Maker:

C Major over 3 octave range

4/4 time

1 bar length

I am not going to comment further on this melody at this point as it is not meant to be anything more than a quick test of some computer code.

However, if on the very rare chance this melody is not original I would be interested to find out. If this melody plagiarises your own music then apologies … but well, in that case your music could have been written by a very simple pseudo-random alogrithm.

“Lets take a walk, out by the chemical works,
where the sky glows green at night”

When I think about industry as an inspiration it is the image of dark satanic mills, factories, power stations and chemical plants pumping dark smoke into a grey wet sky I am thinking about. Why I like this image I’m not sure … I can be a bit of hippy at heart … but I think it is probably the desolation of the image that does it for me, appealing to my misathropic and pessimistic side.

I do actually like and am interested in the steampunk look and creations but it’s not really me. Too much brass polish. I could maybe be do the next phase of steampunk, the neglected decaying remains of factories where the work has been off-shored in search of ever cheaper labour, or stereotypical soviet steampunk, sub-standard machines churning out sub-standard goods …

… on a bit of a tangent, I feel that the more advanced and better a techonoloy is, the harder it is to feel any romantic connection to it, the less easy it is to feel creatively inspired by it … would rather sit and watch steam engines pumping away than internal combustion engines, would rather watch internal combustion engines than electric motors … and so on. Objectivity is required to drive progress. …

… back on topic and still thinking about the Soviet Union I also find old-school communist and socialist propaganda imagery to be very powerful and creatively inspiring. As with my heavily polluting noisy factory it is the image rather than the reality I like.

The images of industry I see as a potential to inspire and influence my music, link in closely with my politics, a simpler time, science and engineering and desolate landscapes inspirations that I have either already mentioned or will do shortly … but would any industrial influence be obvious in my music? Probably not, I think the term industrial implies intense, noisy and repetitive music. I do enjoy listening to bands in this vein, already labeled as industrial music, but I think I probably too laid back and mellow to pull this off convincingly myself.

Having said that the musical project I am currently working on, when I stop procrastinating for a few moments, could certainly be said to be inspired by modern industry. Automatic and computer controlled.

I like the idea of taking a piece of art and creating a piece of music depicting it. Growing up I think of Iron Maiden’s Rime Of The Ancient Mariner amongst others and more recently been listening to a series about Wagner and the powerful music he created based loosely on mythologies. And when I do sit down and try to write music I often do take the written word of others as a starting point.

As an inspiration and influence on my own music I guess this would relate to specific works of literature (or other art) rather than literature as a whole.

I, of course, am inspired and influenced by love as much as the next person but objectively I do not see it as playing any real part in my own music. This is for two main reasons:

1) I am an engineer in the real world and therefore automatically and, possibly, genetically unable to write love songs (and should probably be banned from attempting to).

2) Without doubt the best love inspired music is that inspired by the wrong types of love – unrequieted love, doomed love, tragic love, illicit love, illegal love – none of which I have any real experience with and therefore don’t feel qualified to create music about. Happy love does not create good art and only induces vomit in others.

Having said this, I do still secretly hope my music does excite and woo my wife so that she wants me more. Does that mean my music is inspired by love afterall?

For me this would be dropping out from the capitalist, consumerist, rat-race society and living somewhere remote with just my family, growing my own food and brewing my own beer … generally living outside contemporary norms, not bothering anyone and not being bothered by anyone. (The fact I probably wouldn’t actually like this and certainly wouldn’t cope is irrelevant I find the idea inspiring.)

Musically the best example of this influence/inspiration I can think of at this moment is Hayseed Dixie, in particular their own songs, Corn Liquor, Kirby Hill, Moonshiner’s Daughter and so on … perhaps I might be a closet redneck.

However the idea of a simple time as influence on music doesn’t have to be lyrical, thinking here about artists like King Creosote and Malcolm Middleton who write songs that bring about a mental image of this mythical simpler time while lyrically being very modern. This is possibly the style of music I am most enjoying in this current phase of my life.

Is this desire for a simpler time likely to explicitly influence my own music. Probably not, as much as I would like it to, I’m just not a songwriter and songs are what characterise the music that makes my think and want this simpler time.

I certainly have in the past, where I have avoided certain acts because I learnt they possibly held dubious political views. I have not bought records for this reason alone. (On the other hand I have also been introduced to and bought records by acts I would otherwise not have heard simply because I learnt and admired their politics.) These days, however, I am more concerned with the erosion/censorship of freedom of speech/thought than I am about any individual’s political opinions and would no longer write-off music on the basis of the creator’s politics alone.

My point, however, remains and is that by being overtly political, you risk alienating and putting off some percentage of possible listeners … This may of course be desired depending on the nature of the act and politics in question … But if you are trying to make a living or get your art to as many as possible …

Related to the same point, whatever your political viewpoint … It is wrong! There is no utopia. Human beings are too varied for there to be any solution that doesn’t suck for the majority of people … And pragmatic realism is never going to create great art. Is it worth alienating a large section of the population from listening to your music to push a view that is wrong?

Another issue in creating political music is that you set up unrealistic expectations as to how you live your life both inside and outside music … Just as all political viewpoints are wrong, everyone is hypocritical to some degree … Impossible to never “sell out” …

So, while I love politics and political music, my heart just isn’t in it to try and change the world through song.