Andrew R. Brown

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Verified

Andrew verified their affiliation via an institutional email.

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• PhD
• Professor of Digital Arts at Griffith University

Examining the role of arts and culture in regional Australia often focuses on economic aspects within the creative industries. However, this perspective tends to disregard the value of unconventional practices and fails to recognise the influence of regional ecological settings and the well-being advantages experienced by amateur and hobbyist music...

Creative activities often involve specific processes and techniques that reflect the unique nature of the activity. For live coders, these processes and techniques can be expressed as algorithms and functions in live coding languages. In many fields, these idiomatic processes are referred to as design patterns. Design patterns are important to unde...

The On Board Call is a bespoke musical interface designed to engage the general public’s interest in wildlife sounds, such as bird, frog or animal calls, through imitation and interaction. The device is a handheld, battery-operated, microprocessor-based machine that synthesises sounds using FM synthesis methods. It includes a small amplifier and lo...

This paper introduces a machine learning tool for generating novel furniture designs. We employ a network graph to represent object structure and utilise two deep neural nets in combination to learn these network graphs, reproduce them, and generate variations on them. We apply the tool to the domain of furniture design and describe how the tool ca...

This paper explores the use of bespoke printed circuit boards (PCBs) for enhancing Do-It-Yourself (DIY) making of electronic sound devices. With the tools and manufacturing costs now within reach of amateur makers, the production of PCBs for DIY projects can add stability and reproducibility to the growing number of custom instruments used in ubiqu...

We present a project that explores the application of efficient digital signal processing techniques for interactive music applications across a range of devices and platforms, focusing on visual programming. As a test case, we implement physically informed models of sound synthesis and sound spatialisation that can respond in real time to per-form...

The Beat Machine is a handheld music synthesizer and sequencer. The authors discuss the development of the Beat Machine and how creative constraints and opportunities were introduced by the particularities of low-cost microprocessors and associated electronics. The discussion is framed as an exemplar of Kåre Poulsgaard's concept of enactive individ...

The Beat Machine is a hand-held music synthesizer and sequencer. We discuss the development of the Beat Machine and how creative constraints and opportunities were introduced by the particularities of low-cost microprocessors and associated electronics. The discussion is framed as an exemplar of Kåre Poulsgaard's concept of enactive individuation,...

Creative careers in the performing arts follow a somewhat unique trajectory that is driven by specific labour market conditions. This chapter outlines a typology of creative career stages as they have become evident in our explorations of the career trajectories of professional singers. The career stages we propose are: (1) pre-career; (2) breaking...

This article explores the impacts of information sharing and experimentation on electronic media practitioners. It draws on characteristics of 'open' or 'DIY' cultures prevalent in the technological 'maker' movement and suggests that we collectively describe such practices as cooperative experimentalism. In particular this article focuses on the di...

Contemporary musical aesthetics, as a field in the humanities , does not typically argue for the existence of aesthetic universals. However, in the field of computational creativity, universals are actively sought, with a view to codification and implementation. This article critiques some statistical and information-based methods that have been us...

The Gendynish algorithm is software that runs the Arduino-class microprocessors to produces sounds similar to Iannis Xenakis' dynamic stochastic synthesis. This article provides background on the origins of stochastic synthesis and describes the Gendynish algorithm and associated electronic instrument development and performance outcomes. This algo...

This article examines features of algorithmic music performance practices and considers how these might be applied to other generative content creation contexts. Based on the assumption that all generative processes are performative, the article draws from an analysis of live algorithmic music to outline lessons that may be more widely applicable t...

In this paper, we examine digital creativity as a collective activity performed through socio-technological networks of agency. We introduce metacreation—the automation of creative tasks with machines—as a domain that is usefully examined from a 3rd wave HCI approach. We discuss four general human-computer interaction activities that commonly appea...

JythonMusic is a software environment for developing interactive musical experiences and systems. It is based on jMusic, a software environment for computer-assisted composition, which was extended within the last decade into a more comprehensive framework providing composers and software developers with libraries for music making, image manipulati...

Musebots are autonomous musical agents that interact with other musebots to produce music. Inaugurated in 2015, musebots are now an established practice in the field of musical metacreation, which aims to automate aspects of creative practice. Originally musebot development focused on software-only ensembles of musical agents, coded by a community...

Pervasive computing technologies are providing opportunities and challenges for new musical practices and are offering greater access to musical interactions for people at all levels of musical experience. In this chapter we review theoretical insights and practical experiences of taking advantage of these opportunities and meeting these challenges...

The chapter will discuss how bringing music and computation together in the curriculum offers socially grounded contexts for the learning of digital expression and creativity. It will explore how algorithms codify cultural knowledge, how programming can assist students in understanding and manipulating cultural norms, and how these can play a part...

This paper discusses improvisatory musical interactions between a musician and a machine. The focus is on duet performances, in which a human pianist and the Controlling Interactive Music (CIM) software system both perform on mechanized pianos. It also discusses improvisatory behaviours, using reflexive strategies in machines, and describes interfa...

Musical duets are a type of creative partnership with a long history of artistic practice. What can they tell us about creative partnerships between a human and a computer? To explore this question, we implemented an activity-based model of duet interaction in software designed to support musical metacreation and investigated the experience of perf...

In this article we discuss how contemporary computational and electronic music-making practices might be characterised as a post-digital avant-garde. We also discuss how practitioners within the higher education sector can play a role in leading the development of these practices through their research and teaching. A brief overview of twentieth-ce...

When used for live coding, a computer is more than an instrument; it becomes a musical partner. Coding enables automated behaviours that take on a life of their own. In this article, I take live coding as a starting point from which to explore human–machine relations in creative practices. After a brief scan of music technology history, I describe...

Despite a long history of generative practices in music, creation of large-scale form has tended to remain under direct control of the composer. In the field of musical metacreation, such interaction is generally perceived to be desirable, due to the complexity of generating form, and the necessary aesthetic decisions involved in its creation. Howe...

The practice of coding music live challenges computing conventions with regard to developmental agility. The computational representation of music likewise challenges musicians to articulate their practice in new ways. In this article we describe the development, teaching and use of the JythonMusic environment designed to meet these challenges head...

The use of technology in music and education can no longer be described as a recent development. Music learners actively engage with technology in their music making, regardless of the opportunities afforded to them in formal settings. This volume draws together critical perspectives in three overarching areas in which technology is used to support...

This position paper proposes that creative practices can be usefully understood as agency networks. In particular it looks at interactive algorithmic musical practices and the takes a distributed view of the influences involved in such music making. The elements involved include humans, tools, culture and the physical environment that constitute a...

Ripples is a human-machine musical duet where the human performance stimulates a cascade of responses from genera-tive music software. The work emphasizes chordal and ar-peggiated material derived, in the machine's case, from underlying patterns of oscillation. The Ripples software listens to MIDI input from the musician's performance and responds...

In Australian colloquial language, a 'mate' is a friend or companion. More broadly a 'mate' can indicate a more intimate, even sexual, relationship. The term, therefore, works well to evoke the kind of close partnership I have in mind between a musician and their musical instrument. But what does it mean to design and construct such an instrument,...

Our contemporary sound world is ever expanding, driven largely by advances in modern technologies that continue to expand a child's ability to engage with music. This chapter will explore how musical practices have responded to the changing technocultural context and describes conceptual frameworks designed to assist with understanding these practi...

In this paper we report on our experiences using ubiquitous computing devices to introduce music-based creative activities into an Australian school. The use of music applications on mobile tablet computers (iPads) made these activities accessible to students with a limited range of prior musical background and in a general purpose classroom settin...

This paper explores the recent emergence of artistic research literature and extends this by examining the practice of the authors as musicians and researchers. Individual case studies respond to questions raised in the literature by interrogating music making processes. Through reflexive narratives, each author explains the thinking behind their m...

This article presents a series of algorithmic techniques for melody generation, inspired by models of music cognition. The techniques are designed for interactive composition, and so privilege brevity, simplicity, and flexibility over fidelity to the underlying models. The cognitive models canvassed span gestalt, preference rule, and statistical le...

This is an introduction to creative software development and music making in Python. This material is intended for CS0/CS1 courses and for courses at the intersection of computing and the arts. The workshop will introduce music making activities for teaching traditional CS1 topics, GUIs, event-driven programming, and connecting to external devices...

Music Technology and Education: Amplifying Musicality lays out principles of music technology and how they can be used to enhance music teaching and learning. The book provides an overview of the field in sufficient detail to extend the reader’s knowledge of, and engagement with, music technologies in a variety of ways. The book discusses relevant...

In this chapter we report on our experiences using ubiquitous computing devices to introduce music-based creative activities into an Australian school. The use of music applications on mobile tablet computers (iPads) made these activities accessible to students with a limited musical background and practicable in a general-purpose classroom setting...

This article outlines the design of a system for dynamic real-time editing of online music video sequences, utilising probabilistic parameters and algorithmic decision-making for progression. It will explain how this system enables videos to be different every time they are accessed, thus providing users with an enhanced viewing experience and crea...

In the twenty-first century, computers have become indispensable in music making, distribution, performance, and consumption. Making Music with Computers: Creative Programming in Python introduces important concepts and skills necessary to generate music with computers. It interweaves computing pedagogy with musical concepts and creative activities...

What design factors contribute to an illusion of agency in a computational system? Our previous research [1, 2] has investigated this question in the context of creative human-machine musical partnerships, where we identified musical behaviours implying machine agency from the perspective of a human performer. This paper investigates an audience pe...

Research on the aspirations of people with intellectual disabilities documents the importance of alternative zones of inclusion where they can assert their own definitions of ability and normality. This stands in contrast to assumptions concerning technology and disability that position technology as ‘normalizing’ the disabled body. This paper repo...

We advocate for the use of predictive techniques in interactive computer music systems. We suggest that the inclusion of prediction can assist in the design of proactive rather than reactive computational performance partners. We summarize the significant role prediction plays in human musical decisions, and the only modest use of prediction in int...

We describe the Motivator, a newly developed Computer Assisted Composition (CAC) tool for generating variations of melodic motives. The motivator helps composers to make Gestalt switches in interpretation of multistable motives, generates variations that preserve structural tones in a given interpretation, and suggests variations that enhance the m...

This article celebrates the life and work of Australian musician and educator Steve Dillon (20 March 1953–1 April 2012). It focuses on the most significant pedagogical and philosophical ideas that informed his community music practice, and illustrates these concepts with examples from his work with the Sweet Freedom, Accessible Interactions, DI...

Computer music software is traditionally conceived of as a conduit for human creativity, transparently mediating the execution of our normal artistic acts. Recent technical advances, though, have heralded a new breed of software: autonomous creative agents, capable of independently generating original pieces without external intervention. This chap...

In this article we identify how computational automation achieved through programming has enabled a new class of music technologies with generative music capabilities. These generative systems can have a degree of music making autonomy that impacts on our relationships with them; we suggest that this coincides with a shift in the music-equipment re...

Sound Musicianship is a book for music educators and musicians about musicianship—about musical skills, abilities, habits, sensibilities and understandings. Musicianship is explored as a form of craftsmanship. Like most crafts, music requires a balance of theoretical knowledge and practical skills that contribute to a highly tuned ability to apprec...

This paper discusses emerging creative practices that involve interacting with generative computational systems, and the effect of such cybernetic interactions on our conceptions of creativity and agency. As computing systems have become more powerful in recent years, real time interaction with 'intelligent' computational processes and models has e...

This paper describes algorithms that can musically augment the realtime performance of electronic dance music by generating new musical material by morphing. Note sequence morphing involves the algorithmic generation of music that smoothly transitions between two existing musical segments. The potential of musical morphing in electronic dance music...

In this paper we describe some interaction strategies employed by the Jambot – an interactive music system that we have recently developed. In particular we outline three approaches that the Jambot uses to mediate between imitative and intelligent actions. The approaches are (i) mode switching based on confidence of understanding, (ii) filtering an...

Instrumental music performance is a well-established case of real-time interaction with technology and, when extended to ensembles, of interaction with others. However, these interactions are fleeting and the opportunities to reflect on action is limited, even though audio and video recording has recently provided important opportunities in this re...

Composers and performers communicate emotional intentions through the control of basic musical features such as pitch, loudness, and articulation. The extent to which emotion can be controlled by software through the systematic manipulation of these features has not been fully examined. To address this, we present CMERS, a Computational Music Emoti...

Generative music systems can be played by musicians who manipulate the values of algorithmic parameters, and their data-centric nature provides an opportunity for coordinated interaction amongst a group of systems linked over IP networks; a practice we call Network Jamming. This paper outlines the characteristics of this networked performance pract...

This workshop focuses upon research about the qualities of community in music and of music in community facilitated by technologically supported relationships. Generative media systems present an opportunity for users to leverage computational systems to form new relationships through interactive and collaborative experiences. Generative music and...

Network Jamming systems provide real-time collaborative media performance experiences for novice or inexperienced users. In this paper we will outline the theoretical and developmental drivers for our Network Jamming software, called jam2jam. jam2jam employs generative algorithmic techniques with particular implications for accessibility and learni...

Network Jamming systems provide real-time collaborative performance experiences for novice or inexperienced users. In this paper we will outline the interaction design considerations that have emerged during through evolutionary development cycles of the jam2jam Network Jamming software that employs generative techniques that require particular att...

In this article, we examine the affordances of the concept of network jamming as a means of facilitating social and cultural interaction, that provides a basis for unified communities that use sound and visual media as their key expressive medium. This article focuses upon the development of a means of measuring social and musical benefit through c...

All music performances are generative to the extent that the actions of performers produce musical sounds, but in this article we focus on performative interaction with generative music in a more compositional sense. In particular we discuss how live coding of music involve the building and management of generative processes. We suggest that the hu...

An issue on generative music in Contemporary Music Review allows space to explore many of these controversies, and to explore the rich algorithmic scene in contemporary practice, as well as the diverse origins and manifestations of such a culture. A roster of interesting exponents from both academic and arts practice backgrounds are involved, match...

This paper discusses a method, Generation in Context, for interrogating theories of music analysis and music perception. Given an analytic theory, the method consists of creating a generative process that implements the theory in reverse. Instead of using the theory to create analyses from scores, the theory is used to generate scores from analyses...

Research is often characterised as the search for new ideas and understanding. The language of this view privileges the cognitive and intellectual aspects of discovery. However, in the research process theoretical claims are usually evaluated in practice and, indeed, the observations and experiences of practical circumstances often lead to new rese...

Grid music systems provide discrete geometric methods for simplified music-making by providing spatialised input to construct patterned music on a 2D matrix layout. While they are conceptually simple, grid systems may be layered to enable complex and satisfying musical results. Grid music systems have been applied to a range of systems from small p...

There are many interactive media systems, including computer games and media art works, in which it is desirable for music to vary in response to changes in the environment. In this paper we will outline a range of algorithmic techniques that enable music to adapt to such changes, taking into account the need for the music to vary in its expressive...

This paper describes the use of the Chimera Architecture as the basis for a generative rhythmic improvisation system that is intended for use in ensemble contexts. This interactive soft- ware system learns in real time based on an audio input from live performers. The paper describes the components of the Chimera Architecture including a novel anal...

SoundCipher is a software library written in the Java language that adds important music and sound features to the Processing environment that is widely used by media artists and otherwise has an orientation toward computational graphics. This article introduces the SoundCipher library and its features, describes its influences and design intention...

This paper explores a method of comparative analysis and classification of data through perceived design affordances. Included is discussion about the musical potential of data forms that are derived through eco-structural analysis of musical features inherent in audio recordings of natural sounds. A system of classification of these forms is propo...

The TraSe (Transform-Select) algorithm has been developed to investigate the morphing of electronic music through automatically applying a series of deterministic compositional transformations to the source, guided towards a target by similarity metrics. This is in contrast to other morphing techniques such as interpolation or parameters or probabi...

This paper uses a workshop format to demonstrate an emerging theoretical model for observing meaningful engagement in community music making. Three case study examples involving the research and development of the jam2jam ―family‖ of generative software and hardware applications are examined to highlight the evaluation of social and musical outcome...

Emotions are a key part of creative endeavours, and a core problem for computational models of creativity. In this paper we discuss an affective computing architecture for the dynamic modification of music with a view to predictably affecting induced musical emotions. Extending previous work on the modification of perceived emotions in music, our s...

Dynamic software systems for generative art have particular requirements around rapid development and manipulation of ideas and real-time computational processes. Impromptu is an innovative new programming environment created by Andrew Sorensen, and is designed to facilitate the fluid flow of creative ideas and their expression in software. It has...

Live coding performances provide a context with particular demands and limitations for music making. In this paper we discuss how as the live coding duo aa-cell we have responded to these challenges, and what this experience has revealed about the computational representation of music and approaches to interactive computer music performance. In par...

This chapter explores the potential for using computers, linked via a network, as vehicles for collaborative musical improvisation. The term ‘networked improvisation’ suggests a ‘contemporary musicianship’, which embraces the computer as instrument, the network as ensemble and cyberspace as venue. Networked improvisation provides a multitude of lea...

This paper discusses how software development can be used as a method for music education research. It explains how software development can externalize ideas, stimulate action and reflection, and provide evidence to support the educative value of new software-based experiences. Parallels between the interactive software development process and est...

Jamming culture has become associated with digital manipulation and reuse of materials. As well, the term jamming has long been used by musicians (and other performers) to mean improvisation, especially in collaborative situations. A practice that gets to the heart of both these meanings is live coding; where digital content (music and/or visuals p...

This poster presentation will report on research undertaken by a multidisciplinary team into the design and development of applications for creation and sharing of audio visual content on mobile phones. It outlines the conceptual basis and design process of the project, describing a number of the demonstration applications developed. It also report...

This paper introduces a new approach to music composition we call eco-structuralism. The techniques of ecostructuralism include analysis and transformation of sonic structures in environmental sounds. This paper elaborates on the motivations, process and techniques of ecostructuralism as a formalized method of music making that implements the princ...

Digital media and information systems present the opportunity to capture, store and manage multiple forms of evidence (visual/aural/kinaesthetic) about artistic product and processes that are compatible with the more personal, qualitative meanings with which artistic practice is concerned. This suggests new possibilities for better assessment of le...

This chapter examines the creative production context as a vehicle to reveal the issues, problems and complexities that may be encountered when working with ePortfolios. We utilise metaphors from the creative arts as tools to provide new perspectives and insights that may not otherwise occur in other disciplines to provide a unique critique of the...

Music plays an enormous role in today's computer games; it serves to elicit emotion, generate interest and convey important information. Traditional gaming music is fixed at the event level, where tracks loop until a state change is triggered. This behaviour however does not reflect musically the in-game state between these events. We propose a dyn...

Music is an immensely powerful affective medium that pervades our everyday life. With ever advancing technology, the reproduction and application of music for emotive and information transfer purposes has never been more prevalent. In this paper we introduce a rule-based engine for influencing the perceived emotions of music. Based on empirical mus...

An exquisite music performance can move an audience to tears of joy, or those of sorrow. The job of a good performer then is to convey not just the music’s notated structure, but also its emotional metadata. In time, the performer will also learn to respond musically to the state of a live audience; matching their emotional ebb and flow to maintain...

Abstract. The use of Cellular Automata (CA) for musical purposes has a rich history. In general the mapping of CA states to note-level music representations has focused on pitch mapping and downplayed rhythm. This paper reports experiments in the application of one-dimensional cellular automata to the generation and evolution of rhythmic patterns....

Preparing and developing e-learning materials is a costly and time consuming enterprise. This paper highlights the elements of effective design that we consider assist in the development of high quality materials in a cost efficient way. We introduce six elements of design and discuss each in some detail. These elements focus on paying attention to...

Preparing and developing e-learning materials is a costly and time consuming enterprise. This paper highlights the elements of effective design that we consider assist in the development of high quality materials in a cost efficient way. We introduce six elements of design and discuss each in some detail. These elements focus on paying attention to...

This paper will show how collaborative practice-led research can lead to the generation of new knowledge and new artistic work. In it we will address two aspects, firstly how separate creative practices can positively combine when connected by a research focus and, secondly, how a digital technology can be a catalyst for collaborative practice-led...

This paper reports on the development of the Interactive Dynamic Stochastic Synthesizer and describes how its implementation of dynamic stochastic synthesis extends previous implementations, in particular with relation to the GENDYN implementation by Iannis Xenakis. The extensions include elaborations of existing features, parameterization to previ...

Various algorithmic techniques are available for generating music, many of which come from the field of artificial intelligence, which is rich with potential in this regard. However, the musical appropriateness of these techniques is less clearly understood. In this paper, I will report on a study that aimed to describe the characteristics of two o...

Throughout musical history new sounds and instruments have opened new opportunities for music making. In this paper we outline a new interactive digital instrument that implements the dynamic stochastic synthesis algorithm devised by Iannis Xenakis. We discuss the history and operation of this synthesis process, previous implementations of it, and...

Physical musical instruments have always been dynamic systems designed to operate within chosen constraints. This paper reports on the interaction design of a new digital musical instrument that uses dynamic stochastic synthesis and how performance requirements have directed the development of an appropriate interface that balances the systems emer...

The history of music in the twentieth century is viewed as a process of expanding the sonic material of music to include all sound. Technological barriers to the full exploitation of the domain of sound are suggested as causing the process to take more ...

Much has been written about the rules of melody writing and this paper reports on research that uses computer-based statistical analysis based upon these rules. As a first stage in a processes of computer generation of melodies we have devised computer software that analyses melodic features highlighted in melody writing literature. The results of...

Genetic Algorithms (GA's) are considered promising for music composition because they combine ‘creativity’ (ability to explore a large search space) with constraints (creative 'excess' is 'pruned' using a fitness function). A major difficulty with the use of GA's for this task is to define fitness functions which capture the aesthetic qualities of...

In this paper I will present some perspectives on compositional engagement which have arisen from my PhD study into composition processes with computers. I believe that while the specific tasks and outcomes of making music with computers might be different from another medium, such as paper or piano, the composer’s engagement is fundamentally simil...

this paper I will address how we might look at composers in a way which helps us understand their computer usage.