With just these two parameters as input, a computer can measure how they change over time revealing an abundance of useful musical data, such as chord structure, key, rhythm, phrase length, and increases and decreases in tempo and dynamics. The computer keyboard and mouse represents a similarly limited input mechanism that can be interpreted to produce complex musical results, with listener algorithms designed to detect patterns and timing information. Computer Composition Flexible compositional algorithms may generate an infinite variety of music, with selected parameters influenced by performers. For hundreds of years, composers have used such processes to generate large musical structures from simple musical material. In interactive computer music, these generative processes, in the form of algorithms, use basic musical material, either previously stored or derived from the performance.
Changeable parameters allow the performers to continuously shape and influence musical output.
The addition of constrained random variables sets up improvisational situations where the music will always be different and unpredictable, yet it will always reside within a prescribed range that defines a coherent musical style. With sample playback, signal processing, and variable synthesis algorithms available for sound generation from the computer, interactive music techniques will become more viable for a large number of artists since the music will not depend on specific hardware devices and will therefore travel easily from one computer to another. Many composers, already experienced with creating artistic work using the computer, will find that expanding music into the multimedia realm is a natural extension of their ongoing work. Because music is fundamentally a time-based art, composers are well trained to deal with the aesthetic issues surrounding timing structures. Max is ideally suited for playing video and still images in a performance situation, or in any application where timing functions are critical.