A new approach to artificial chorales – #8

This one was done a different way than the previous versions. Previously I had created 16 voice chorales by preserving just the bass part and letting the model figure out the other notes. What I created were four different versions of harmonizing a bass line. Each knew nothing of what the other ones had created, which led to chaos. I had to surreptitiously go back and blot out the notes that were in foreign keys. This was a rather crude way to compensate. Anyway, I though of a different way.

In this version, I went through the process in a very methodical way. I found a way to mask one voice and keep the others, letting the model use it’s own judgement for what that new voice should be. I then went through all the voices in the four part chorale until they had all been replaced. I kept doing that until I had a total of 16 voices. The new voice is usually pretty close to the original, matching 80% of the original notes.

Imagine a chorale with voices S A T B. The first time through it S becomes S prime, which creates a chorale with S’ A T B. Then it makes S’ A’ T B, followed by S’ A’ T’ B, finally making S’ A’ T’ B’. It saves that generated chorale (4,32) in a slot in a (4,4,32) array. Then it does it again, gradually shifting from the original chorale to one that includes some odd notes. S’ A’ T’ B’ becomes S” A’ T’ B’, then S” A” T’ B’.
Each is stored in the (4,4,32) array. At the end, it reshapes that into a (16,32) array and returns it to the calling program.

I end up with a 16 voice chorale. The first four are very close to the original chorale (Schmucke by Bach). They are in the far left of the audio stereo field. The ones towards the right are mutations of that, until on the far right it has gone into strange areas. The ear can’t really separate them out, so you end up with a strange mess of notes that include many that don’t belong. Maybe if I slow it down it would make more sense.

I should mention that I’ve been using the George Secor’s Victorian rational well-temperament (based on Ellis #2) in F for these realizations. It does a pretty good job in that key.


secor_vrwt.scl
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George Secor's Victorian rational well-temperament (based on Ellis #2) on F
12
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19/18
598/535
1088/917
1179/941
4/3
545/387
626/419
421/266
1510/903
185/104
325/173
2/1

Published by

Prent Rodgers

Musician seduced into capitalism.