Early One Morning Versions

Audio

Figures and Scores

Description

The first four measures of versions 1 and 2 of Early One Morning illustrate how a single user with the same monophonic starting melody can direct the accompaniment in two different ways that nevertheless both relate to the initial melody. Because the accompaniments share two of their layers, they sound related. However, through timbre selection and the evolution of two and three distinct layers in versions 1 and 2, respectively, the user imparts a different feel.

The layers are shown in order from top to bottom in both versions (layer 1 is the original melody). Layer 2, which is the same in both versions, is heard as violin II in version 1 and viola in version 2.

An important observation is that the violoncello part in version 1 follows the rhythm of the initial starting melody very closely while the pitch contour differs only slightly. While the viola and double-bass parts differ in both pitch and rhythm over the course of the song, both end phrases and subphrases on the tonic note, F, in many places over the course of the piece, including measure 4 in Version 1. Version 2, on the other hand, contains many rhythmic similarities (i.e. the eighth note patterns contained in the keyboard I, viola, keyboard II, and the violin II parts), but illustrates distinct pitch contours. Together, the two versions illustrate how a single user can generate different accompaniment from the same initial monophonic starting melody and how the initial melody exerts its influence both rhythmically and harmonically.

Evolutionary Process

Early One Morning, (Song 1) versions 1 and 2 with four- and five-part accompaniments were started by undergraduate, Marie E. Norton, from an initial monophonic melody transcribed from the traditional, human-composed folk song. The second layer is identical in both versions and was evolved from Early One Morning itself. The third, fourth, and fifth parts of version 1 were all evolved from the second layer. The third, fourth, fifth, and sixth parts of version 2 were evolved from the pitch network of the second layer of version 1, and the rhythm network from the original Early One Morning monophonic melody. This experiment illustrates that the results with FSMC given the same starting melody are not deterministic and in fact do provide creative latitude to the user even without the need for traditional composition techniques.

The key decisions made by the users are in general from which tracks to generate more tracks. Of course the users also performed the IEC selection operations to breed each new layer. Importantly, none such decisions require musical expertise.