Organized Cacophony

Overview

For this project, our group performed three compositions, each of which was made up of four different songs arranged in creative ways. We agreed that we wanted each of our compositions to be unique by playing with varying levels of chance, indeterminacy, and entropy. We were able to organize these factors within each composition through use of timers and random number generators. 

The first composition features 1. Bon Jovi - It's My Life (at 8 second intervals), 2. Beach Avenue - Feel the Beat (at 5 second intervals), 3. Do You Hear the People Sing? from Les Miserables (at 14 second intervals), and 4. Joe Hisaishi - One Summer's Day from Spirited Away (at 7 second intervals).

The second composition includes 1. Taylor Swift - Shake It Off (at 4 second intervals), 2. Ariana Grande - Break Free (at 16 second intervals), 3. Jessie J, Ariana Grande, and Nicki Minaj - Bang Bang (at 14 second intervals), and 4. Demi Lovato - Really Don't Care (at 6 second intervals).

Finally, the third composition comprises of 1. Bon Jovi - You Give Love a Bad Name, 2. The Foundations - Build Me Up Buttercup, 3. Florida Georgia Line - Cruise, and 4. Cher Lloyd - Want U Back.

You may listen to the compositions here.

Composition 1

Chance - Low

Indeterminacy - High

Entropy - High

For our first composition, we decided to experiment with indeterminacy. We let each group member choose any piece of music to use. Then, following the pseudocode on the handout, we each used a random number generator to generate an interval (between 3 seconds and 20 seconds). Then, at each interval, each group member would use the random number generator again to generate either a 0 or a 1, which signifies stopping or starting a piece of music. This process had high indeterminacy because none of the members knew how the pieces would sound together. In addition, we all picked random intervals and started/stopped our pieces at random points, so again there was no telling how the composition would sound. This resulted in high entropy for this composition, since we could not predict the outcome of the composition. However, this piece had very low chance for both the listeners and the composers because we each had complete control over what piece we wanted to choose. Therefore, if the listeners knew what kinds of songs the composers preferred, it would not be difficult to predict what kinds of songs would be in the composition.

Composition 2

Chance - High

Indeterminacy - Low

Entropy - Medium/High

For this second composition, we decided to let chance decide. The four of we went on to Pandora and selected the "Today's Hits" station before picking the first song that appeared on the station. By letting the Pandora station decide any song for us, without us having a clue as to what it could be, we greatly increased the level of chance for us-- it could have been anything from Demi Lovato to Sam Smith to something none of us had even heard of before. This decision also increased the level of chance for the listeners because they would have no reason to believe they were about to listen to a mix of four "Today's Hits" songs; even if they were to know us beforehand and the music we liked, that would give no indication as to what they were about to hear. However, it significantly lowered the level of indeterminacy for our group because we all picked from the same station. All four of us knew it would be some sort of pop music, most likely sung by a woman, and that they would most likely work together, since they were all from the same genre. Though it could have been any song, which gave our composition a high level of chance, it could not be anything that fell out of the category of "Today's Hits." No matter what the Pandora station gave us, it would most likely work together because we reduced the chance of indeterminacy by limiting the choices to the "Today's Hits" station. Following the pseudocode given to us, we all chose random intervals for which to play each of our songs, and still randomly rolled the dice for whether we should play the song (1) or wait 5 seconds (0). Thus, we created medium to high entropy because neither we nor the audience knows when we paused the song and when we played.

Composition 3

Chance - Low

Indeterminacy - Medium

Entropy - Low

In this final composition, we wanted to come up with a piece that had low entropy. We decided to once again have low chance, by each picking any song we wanted, meaning listeners who knew us could expect to hear songs to our individual tastes. However, instead of then choosing random intervals for each song as we did in the first composition, we instead set a specific interval for all songs to adhere to - 10 seconds. More importantly, we also decided to only have 1 song playing at any one time. The first song would start playing for 10 seconds, then the second one for another 10 seconds, and then the third and fourth, following which we loop back to the first. We believed this lowered the level of entropy due to the increased predictability in the final mix. The song was more structured in that every 10 seconds a different song would play. Once a listener starts listening to the song and has experience with the set intervals and different rhythm of each song, he/she will slowly get used to the different voices and rhythms in the composition, and start to expect the shift every 10 seconds.

The level of indeterminacy in this piece is lower than in the first composition as well. This is because even though we each chose songs individually, we chose the same interval for each songs and also only had 1 song playing at any 1 time. This means that some of the uncertainty in the final outcome is lost. However, since the common interval was chosen randomly, and we also chose the order of the songs randomly, there is still a certain amount of indeterminacy.