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The Muse
The Muse was a digital algorithmic music composing machine invented in 1969 by Artificial Intelligence researchers Marvin Minsky and Edward Fredkin at MIT. It was built with the digital logic circuitry of the day; gates, registers, and counters in simple integrated circuits.
While strongly associated with electronic music, The Muse was not a “synthesizer” as it only played a fixed level square wave. Instead, it created original melodies from algorithmic processes, something that hadn’t been seen before. There were no pre-programmed sequences or random sources involved.
Minsky and Fredkin formed a company named Triadex to manufacture the units, which sold for $300. Accessories included an amplifier and a light show in matching enclosures. Multiple Muses could be linked together and synchronized.
The Muse is incredibly rare; one report claims that only 280 were built, and a small fraction of those are likely in working condition today. And that’s a shame, because this was a remarkable device and we can learn much from it.
So … one day I felt particularly inspired, and reverse-engineered The Muse, and built a software simulation that runs on a web page. The project was actually a lot of fun; I had it working in one day, and spent a bit more time on the details, nuances and features, some more time exploring its potential, and writing up what I discovered and putting it all together in an article.
So now, anybody can have a Muse.
My article, with the simulation, instructions, references, and a lot of technical details, is here: Triadex Muse in Javascript
Try it out, have fun, tell us what you discover.
There’s more…
The folks at the Barbican Centre in London got in touch. They are setting up an exhibition on AI and the humanities called AI — More than Human, running from May 16 to August 26. And after that, the exhibition tours the Groninger Forum in the Netherlands, December 2019 to May 2020.
And one of the exhibits is… The Muse.
They have an actual Muse on loan from the London Science Museum, and are setting up my simulated Muse running on a tablet next to it.
This is pretty interesting from a museum presentation standpoint as the visitor can:
- see an actual Muse under glass
- try out the simulated Muse without risking damage to the original
- try the presets, dramatically reducing the ramp-up time
- see how the note patterns work
- and “take it home” with the URL
I’ve built a special version for the exhibit; standalone, single page, formatted specifically for a tablet in landscape orientation, very little text, and exhibition color scheme (not mine!). It looks like this:
So if you’re going to be in London next month…
Or try it out now; the museum version is here: The Triadex Muse, An Interactive Simulation
I’ve got to say, it’s pretty exciting to have my software in a museum.
Published in General
This is nifty. This sort of conversation is what makes Ricochet so valuable.
As usual, Arahant is right. People here have unpredictable knowledge and talent, like a fifties quiz show where keepers of DOD secrets are also experts in interpretive dance, or mechanical engineers demonstrate their ability to riff on film history. A fine post, Don, or should I say noD.
The first computer-composed music is generally thought to be Hiller’s Illiac Suite (1957), but it was written for regular instruments.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0njBFLQSk8
I liked audio synthesizers. NYU had the Donald Buchla system that Morton Subotnick’s Silver Apples of the Moon was composed on. We also had a pair of Electrocomps. These were West Coast-style synths, better set up for experimental recording rather than live performance.
@arahant
You’re right, it is nifty. I just tried it and had fun. Not bad for a close to 80 year old.
I wish I could compose such music. A few extra pauses and less developmental structure, but otherwise very nice!
For our next number, “Two Grecian Urns.”
I am so excited. Another person older than me. That makes three people on Ricochet that claim to be older than I am.
Love the interactive simulation.
I’m not sure how old you are, but there are plenty of octogenarians here. @kayofmt and @kentforrester among them.
If you come up with a cool “composition” you can post the settings here. (INTERVAL, THEME, and REST.)
If I like it, I can add it to the museum version and you can be “museum famous” too.
Reminds me of the movie “Electric Dreams” (1984) – a sentence fragment completely unique to me – because nobody remembers “Electric Dreams” of 1984. It has no relationship to the Philip K Dick work.
The “Electric Dreams” of 1984 is about an architect who buys a PC to calculate a better geometry for earthquake resistant bricks. However, after over hearing a neighbor practicing cello, decides it would rather compose music instead.
I often wondered about these kind of things – because mathematicians call music applied math. (musicians of coarse tell the mathematicians where to stuff it) There have been many mathematical studies of hit music and pop music, noting the strong similarities between the most popular pop songs. Like the “Millennial Whoop” that has been used many resent songs. I imagine the day is not far off – when music – or even TV series scripts could be completely generated by computer.
Ah, but I remember it too! IIRC, the computer plays matchmaker, since in true Eighties movie fashion, a socially awkward guy needs technological magic to get the girl of his dreams. One thing that’s true, and would seem crazy now: many of the first home computer buyers had an affectation of giving cutesy names to their machines, as if their TRS-80 was on the verge of human consciousness. It’s funny because we don’t do that even today, with machines that are tens of thousands of times more capable. Instead we call outside services like Siri or Alexa by a first name.
A lot of users still do give their computers cutesy names. At one place the domain controller is called zoo – all the computers are named after animals … Barn is database server … Elephant is the file server … but a lot of users dont have PCs anymore – just tablets or smartphones, that dont really lend themselves to be renamed.
Octavius, my computer, thinks it’s funny that humans give themselves cutesy names.
Computers have a sense of humor?
Who knew.
It’s usually a bit impish.
Playing a musical instrument is a joyful experience for the musician. I mean, I can play a single note on a guitar and, oh man, that is sweet. There’s little incentive to replace that.
Likewise, for musical composition. It’s like, coming up with a really nice chord change, and, oh man, that is sweet. Little incentive to do away with that.
So The Muse is more like a video game that plays notes.
But it’s also a fun ride, playing with these logical mechanisms here.
And some of the mechanisms could certainly be applied as compositional tools. Similar to the rules for counterpoint or 12-tone serial music.
I’m not sure about the math. I’d say it was the synagogue. The basis for popular music in the 20th Century lies in the songs of the Cantor. There is a reason why so many composers of what we now refer to as “The Great American Songbook” were Jewish.
After several less than critically acclaimed shows Cole Porter told Richard Rodgers he had found the solution, “I’ll write Jewish songs.” Rodgers laughed until Porter’s next big hit came out, “My Heart Belongs to Daddy,” which had Yiddish lilt and a Cantor-like refrain (Ya-da-dah, ya-da-dah, yah-da-dah…). Rodgers admitted there was something to Porter’s theory as most of Cole’s hits, such as “Night and Day” and “I Love Paris” were written in a minor key and evoked Mediterranean melodies.
Well, nowadays, yeah.
If you saw how the sausage was made, you wouldn’t need any mathematical studies.
(And is there anything worse than the Millennial Whoop? I don’t think so.)
Over the years, roughly 70 new genres of music have been created in the US. By any measure, that’s pretty awesome.
(Added: gospel, blues, rhythm and blues, show tunes, barbershop, mandolin orchestra, American song, rock and roll, minimalism, jazz, bebop, bluegrass, Greenwich Village folk, chamber jazz, square dance, ragtime, psychedelic, Texas swing, southern rock, Zappa, big band, jazz fusion, country, country and western, Philly soul, math rock, swing, funk, free jazz,…)
We had one! My uncle worked for the company and build them.
Unfortunately, the children got to it. I was one of them.
That’s awesome!
Any folklore to share?