2018 Elements – A Work in Progress

Elements puts together various adaptive music investigations of different music generation techniques. This app needs a UI, and the UX is yet to be decided, other than the music becomes more upbeat as you move around.

This is a work in progress which brings together many different explorations into generative music possibilites.

It is the first example where my compositional methodologies begin to become clear and defined. In summary, a compositional inquiry is dealt with through the creation of an “abstraction” in Pure Data. Abstractions are then combined and modified into a piece of music. Compositional inquiries include such things as making a constantly varying drum machine, or a constantly evolving drone.

This app uses data from the accelerometer in the mobile device to change the musical environment of the listener. If the listener is stationary, the music calms and becomes sparse. If the user starts to walk around, beats are introduced intermittently, and if the user keeps a steady pace, the beats become regular. The initial drive to create this came from a desire to make an app that would encourage me to exercise in the form of walking around! It has been well-received in this prototype stage, and is awaiting a UI and a firm UX. It has been built using libpd and the native core motion library in xCode.