Looking Outwards – Music and Computation

A MaxMSP patch that turns weather data into music – January 2016

I’ve looked at weather data before as a part of site analysis. I can’t see the connection to this.

Algorithmic Composition is, as the username suggests, an algorithmic composer. Since 2009, they’ve been blogging and posting tutorials on just that. They made the MaxMSP (Max being a visual programming language focused on media) patch above that translates weather data into sound. What’s impressive to me is how much more it does; the patch has options for changing instruments, octaves, pitch, and tempo for the four tracks that can be mixed. As a result, it can do so much with just a single data set, although just by listening to it I can’t see how someone could trace it back to its origins.

Algorithmic Composition says

“You don’t have to be a programmer to make algorithmic music, just an interest in creating music in new ways”

and I think that shows through in their work. It’s making music in a new way.