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Generating Music from Flocking Dynamics

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Controls and Art

Abstract

We explore the connection between complex systems and music by studying different approaches for generating music based on a flocking system. By developing software that links the dynamics of a standard flocking algorithm to a set of sound wave generators and to a musical score, we study how each approach reflects sonically the transition to collective order and which produces musically interesting results. First, we consider three qualitatively different ways to translate the flocking dynamics into music: (1) A direct approach that maps agent positions to sounds, (2) a synchronization approach where each agent has an oscillator that couples to neighboring agents, and (3) a physics-inspired approach that mimics the sound that would result from an effective friction between neighboring agents. We then discuss Ritmos Circadianos, a musical composition for a robot orchestra that is generated entirely from flocking dynamics in real-time, as an actual application of the proposed mapping algorithms. We find that all approaches allow the listener to discriminate between the ordered and disordered states of the flocking system and that the second and third approaches are particularly well suited for generating musically interesting and appealing results.

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Acknowledgments

The work of C. H. was supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation under Grant No. PHY-0848755. The work of R. F. C. and M. C. was supported by Fondecyt under Grant No. 11090193 and by the Fondo de Fomento de la Música, Consejo Nacional de la Cultura y las Artes, under grant No. 15872-0, Government of Chile.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. CHuepe Labs, 954 W 18th Place, Chicago, IL, 60608, USA

    Cristián Huepe

  2. Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA

    Cristián Huepe

  3. Center for Research in Audio Technologies, Music Institute, Santiago, Chile

    Marco Colasso

  4. Computer Science Department, School of Engineering Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile

    Marco Colasso & Rodrigo F. Cádiz

Authors
  1. Cristián Huepe
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  2. Marco Colasso
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  3. Rodrigo F. Cádiz
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Correspondence to Cristián Huepe .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Systems and Information Engineering Department, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, USA

    Amy LaViers

  2. School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia, USA

    Magnus Egerstedt

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Huepe, C., Colasso, M., Cádiz, R.F. (2014). Generating Music from Flocking Dynamics. In: LaViers, A., Egerstedt, M. (eds) Controls and Art. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-03904-6_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-03904-6_7

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-03903-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-03904-6

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