The Music Machines have developed from my earlier works and my work exploring generative music.
Each Music Machine explores a single idea. Some are simple, some more complex. All are generated by the computer within established
parameters, all run continuously until stopped by the listener and all are different each time they are played.
Some involve interaction by the listener either to make choices from a number of parameters (for example Music Machines 6 and 9)
or to press a button to “play’ along with a backing track (Music Machine 3), most require only to be listened to.
The term Music Machine is a reference to John White’s Machine Music:
The Machines, which date from the period 1967-1972 represent a departure from the more
traditionally "narrative" nature of the rest of my pieces. I use the word Machine to define a
consistent process governing a series of musical actions within a particular sound world and,
by extension, the listener's perception thereof. One might thus regard the Welsh Rarebit as a
Machine in which a process is applied to the conditioning and perception of the world of
bread and cheese.
My Music Machines share many similarities with the work of the English Experimental composers of the 1960s and 1970s.
There is a connection with the American minimalists through the use of a steady pulse, repetition and tonality. Music Machine 2 for
example could be entitled In C and Music Machine 4 will invariably involve glimpses of phasing.
These Music Machines use a variety of sound sources, some use the quicktime player that is built into the Mac operating
system, some use midi files and others use prerecorded audio files such as the sounds of coins dropping (Music Machine 5)
and Neil Armstrong's speech as he stepped onto the surface of the moon (Music Machine 8). Music Machine 15 is based on
both Satie's Vexations and Cage's Cheap Imitation.
At present there are 18 Music Machines but the project is ongoing and I expect to produce more in the future.
At the moment most Music Machines will only work on a Mac running OS X although some are now available for Windows.
I hope to produce them for other formats in the near future.
Click here to read the introduction to my PhD thesis for more background information.
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© Simon Belshaw 2012
The Music Machine software is intended for private use only. It is not to be used in public or for commercial use without permission