In the process of developing the work Field Notes, I made a Max patch to analyse field recordings and derive pitches, translate them into MIDI notes and record them as the basis of a score. It became easier to record the MIDI output into a Logic file where they could be further threshed into information that might become a score: the Max Patch was quite capable of generating data that was too complex to transcribe into a traditional score. (In fact it brought into focus just how little information can be captured in a traditional score: because of the temporal grid that the score imposes). In any case I found that the output could also be used to generate an interesting accompaniment for an improvisation. The sample below demonstrates this idea - using an electric piano sound that (to me anyway) sounded a little like the Zawinal/Corea accompaniments found in Mile Davis' Bitches Brew. I'm yet to turn this into a viable performance tool: it took a lot of tweeking to get the output heard here.
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