Evan X. Merz

musician/technologist/human being

Two Duets Composed by Cellular Automata

In the past few days I’ve completed several programs that compose rather nice notated music using cellular automata. Yesterday I posted seven solos generated by cellular automata. Today I am following up with two duets. Like the solos, these pieces were generated using elementary cellular automata.

All of these pieces look rather naked. In the past I’ve added tempo, dynamics, and articulations to algorithmic pieces where the computer only generated pitches and durations. Lately I feel like it’s best to present the performer with exactly what was generated, and leave the rest up to the performer. So these pieces are a bit more like sketches, in the sense that the performer will fill out some of the details.

Download the score for Two Duets Composed by Cellular Automata for any instruments by Evan X. Merz.

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Evan X. Merz

Evan X. Merz holds degrees in computer science and music from The University of Rochester, Northern Illinois University, and University of California at Santa Cruz. He works as a programmer at a tech company in Silicon Valley. In his free time, he is a programmer, musician, and author. He makes his online home at evanxmerz.com and he only writes about himself in third person in this stupid blurb.