Music Without Sound - Algorithmic Music

Algorithmic Music

A sequence of finite instructions according to Wikipedia, an algorithm relates to computation, which ultimately relates to music. Eighteenth century algorithmic music is a contemporary of automaton machines, like Jacques de Vaucanson's duck or Wolfgang von Kempelen's chess player, or Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage's 1822 difference engine. In 1787, W.A. Mozart (1756–1791) devised an aleatoric system called Musikalisches Würfelspiel (Musical Dice) published 1793 by J.J. Hummel in Berlin-Amsterdam, to compose waltzes with a pair of dice and a set of written bars on paper cards. The combination of all the 16 cards and transitions, of which there are theoretically combinations, constitutes a minuet.

Austrian composer Maximilian Johann Karl Dominik Stadler, also known as Maximilian Stadler (1748–1833), created a table to compose minuets and trios with a pair of dice. In the case of the minuet version, there are 16 cards with one bar each and preconceived transitions between certain musical measures. Mathematical games columnist Martin Gardner once remarked in an article about automated music composition. "If you fail to preserve it, it will be a waltz that will probably never be heard again."

The method of pure aleatoric music was used in the twentieth century by US composer Lejaren Hiller.