Aleatoric Music: From Lutosławski to Video Games

In this video, I discuss aleatoric music, specifically the combination of looping and chance. To begin, I look at how the technique has evolved – including developments in modern composition as well as the use looping software and hardware. Later it then goes on to look at the use of aleatoric technique in video games too. To lllustrate this, I look at games such as Lumines (most consoles), Flower and Flow (Playstation 3).

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Thanks to Jonathan Lee (Pentameron) for providing much better subtitles than mine. Really appreciate the work and I've learned a lot about how to do it properly.

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[xavierdumont]

I have a fancy new aleatoric method where I just suck at playing and every time the music is different.

[jg-]

Random idea for an April fools video: Review Photoshop as if it were a music notation software

[amuletsmusic]

this video is so thorough and amazingly well done, thanks for including me - truly an honor!

[digitalspecter]

Musicians: train for 20 years to play correctly and in sync
Composers: forget all that

[jegantdragoch.]

instructions unclear at the end, i only liked and shared the video.

[thepauljones]

That little sting at the end, "if you like my diatribe, subscribe" teases a follow up to The Cultural Coupon in my mind and fills me with a wistful yearning for exactly that. I still listen to that record almost a life later and it remains brilliant. Love the channel, Martin, and I still hope for new playful music in that vein some day.

[instinctbrosgaming]

Roll a d10 three times to determine what movements you play. Roll a d6 for what melody you play. Reroll the d6 until you use all melodies.

[Zappygunshot]

A very good example of aleatoric music in video games is, well, all of Spore's UI. Practically every single button you press or hover over produces a tone that seamlessly blends into the background music in a very subtle way (the music in Spore is generally very subtle to begin with, mostly being there to provide ambient noise so your ears don't feel too lonely). There's even a way to create custom themes for each and every one of your cities, with tons of choices for sound and timing, each of which again seamlessly blending in with all those button presses and the background music.

As strange as it seems, Spore is a game with immense depth and subtlety. The amount of interesting tidbits that you glance over the first seventeen times you play through the various stages of the game is honestly pretty staggering. It's received a lot of criticism, and there's certainly a lot to be criticized about it; but on the whole it's a brilliant game that surprises me every time I play it, even 11.5 years after launch.

[Bretlu]

The hypnotic lure at the end is so cheeky and hilarious. Thanks for introducing the Threnody. I didn't know about Penderecki before, now I can finally make sense how the OST of There Will Be Blood sound so unique. Thanks for keep putting out such high quality content!

[casperdewith]

8:30 This much reminded me of how the field music is handled in _Breath of the Wild._ There are (I believe) 25 piano fragments that play in random order, with random intervals between them. And occasionally, a reversed chord appears.

[danieljray]

And yet, after all that, you go back to Sibelius for the notation demos in the video, like the Ike Turner of notation software.

[odev]

😱 He actually wrote "Lutosławski" with a "Ł"!!!

[lukemacinnes]

I really like the windwakers combat music where when doing critical hits it plays small bits of music that fit the main theme

[james.randorff]

I loved everything about this video, from the outstanding explanations, examples, and demonstrations, to the self-effacing humor sprinkled throughout and slathered on at the end.

[rawkinj]

Your some kinda wizard man! I've been a hard rock, metal, blues, country guitarist for 3O years and you've hooked me to classical music so hard! It's stuff I know sometimes intuitively but now I understand it!! Shhwing!! Thanks!

[reghunt]

07:32 Oh god I love the "Therenody" video. Such an eye opener.

[notgoodname]

I always loved this dynamic effect in games and i'm glad you brought up Flower as its one of my favorite examples of that. If you have the chance, definitely check out the new game Tetris Effect as it also uses this as basically its core mechanic and it's just an absolute joy to play because of it.

[MarquisdeL]

That piece with the cassette tapes reminded me very strongly of Silent Hill 2, specifically the 'song' that plays in the ruined version of the hotel. It's got the same kind of 'constant hum over noise' texture to it.

[kathorsees]

It's interesting that those composers achieved randomness by allowing different musicians more freedom in interpretation. I'd guess a lot of programmers would throw their hands in the air right now and say something along the lines of "but letting people decide is not _randomness_!!11!1". But I think the end result speaks for itself - it does sound random, and it is quite difficult, or even impossible, to predict the "state of the system" at any given moment.
But #2: I also think it's a valid point in a way - we as people don't enjoy "true" randomness at all. We like controlled randomness, so to speak. The same concept is widely known among game designers: if you code a truly random digital die, no one will ever believe it's random. For optimal feel, it needs a few tweaks, like not being able to land on the same number many times in a row. When designing random encounters, you want to make sure the same type and the same number of enemies almost never show up twice, especially in a row, so you give a higher "weight" (probability of showing up) to those monsters and situations the player hasn't seen before. Some even outright ban repeating encounters in a row - a matter of taste, really.

A great video, as usual. Thank you very much for these - you're definitely one of my favourite channels right now. Can't wait for a new upload!
Maybe some more composition tips, this time for beginners? Like people who play an instrument, but only ever compose completely intuitively - you doodle for a while, stumble upon a good line, it becomes the first riff, then you doodle again until you find something for the second riff, etc. Gotta hit that crowd, amirite?

[erikvanzanen]

ok, that take on subscribing and clicking the notification button, then followed up by that vocoded outro got me lol'ing. great video so here's a genuine 1st video watched subber!