Ian Kaneko Looking-Outwards-06

A really cool project I found that uses randomness is a musical piece called “Birds on The Wires” by Jarbas Agnelli. This project likened a picture of birds on a telephone wire to notes on a staff. There just so happened to be 5 telephone wires which correspond to the 5 lines on a musical staff.

While the placement of the birds is not completely random (animals have their biases too) it was still completely out of the artist’s control where the birds decided to land.

This project does a good job at balancing the randomness with the creativity of the artist. While the birds gave him the notes, he freely decided the rhythm that notes would be played. Also in the audio of the piece, you can hear many embellishments in percussion, counter-melodies, and harmonies that where not decided by the birds.