Works and Applications
Algorithmic techniques have also been employed in a number of systems intended for direct musical performance, with many using algorithmic techniques to generate infinitely-variable improvisations on a predetermined theme. An early example was Lucasfilm Games' 1982 computer game Ballblazer, where the computer improvised on a basic jazz theme composed by the game's musical director Peter Langston; later in the life of that company, now rechristened LucasArts, an algorithmic iMUSE engine was developed for their flagship game, Dark Forces.
Similar generative music systems have caught the attention of noted composers. Brian Eno has produced a number of works for the SSEYO's Koan generative music system, which produces ambient variations for web-pages, mobile devices, and for standalone performance. The copyright status of these "generative" works is unclear, although the original "composition" is supplied by the composer and the "performance" is largely the result of the user's computer's own algorithms.
Read more about this topic: Algorithmic Composition
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“The ancients of the ideal description, instead of trying to turn their impracticable chimeras, as does the modern dreamer, into social and political prodigies, deposited them in great works of art, which still live while states and constitutions have perished, bequeathing to posterity not shameful defects but triumphant successes.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)