Computer Musician, Programmer, Hardware Hacker

So, in-between hearing undergrad drop-in exams (all white-key intervals), I’ve been working on the form for my current piece.

Everyone’s favorite scholarly source, Wikipedia, defines a Markov Chain as follows:

…A Markov chain, named after Andrey Markov, is a random process where all information about the future is contained in the present state (i.e. one does not need to examine the past to determine the future).

I think it’s best represented (and explained) using a probability chart, a chart which indicates the probability of a given next state, given the current state. I’m planning on using this to control the progression of form from phrase to phrase. Instead of putting the “criteria” or “decision parameter” (or whatever) at the beginning of a phrase, here I’m putting it at the end. So, it becomes an “if-then-else” procedure. If the criteria is met, the performer chooses the next phrase from one selection, else the performer chooses from a separate selection. I think this will work well, because it avoids the possibility of the piece getting “stuck” (a feature in “Fission“, but not here). It’s also interesting to me because it allows the formation of a dynamic yet consistent logic of phrase progressions. Phrase F will tend to be followed by Phrase D, etc.

The question then becomes, “How does this piece/section/part end?” This is something I’m still grappling with at this point. I’m leaning towards a sort of higher-level “Between 1:30 and 2:15, a performer can move to new material, which signals the other performer that a sectional change is occuring.” Rather than a sharp change, this would make a more gradual transition from one type of material to another. I think it could work. I’ll post some images soon, to demonstrate what I’m talking about.