Background of Genetic Music:

Based on Indian music tradition, minimum of five notes are required for a raaga.

Example 1: One technique uses A, C and G as notes, for the western notes convention has A, B, C, D, E, F, G and respective sharp notes. In one technique for a raaga with only five notes, Murthy has used A, C and G of the genetic code as A, C and G notes. In place of T, I chose two of the appropriate remaining swaras / notes based on the raaga.

Example 2: In another technique, I developed a map between combinations of ACTG and the swaras of the chosen raga. There are 64 possible combinations of ACTG taken four at a time, allowing multiple (up to four) occurrences of the letters. According to the traditions of Indian classical music, a raaga may have five, six or seven swaras / notes. The composer may use some freedom in creating the map. The shadja (reference shruti) and the jeeva swaras (anchor swaras) of the raaga may be assigned to more combinations compared to the other swaras. The degree of relative weights in the process depends on the composition, the raaga and the style of the composer.

Example 3: As a corollary to the second technique, characteristic swara combinations of the chosen raaga may be mapped for the 64 possible ACTG combinations. The dominant swara combinations and the jeeva swaras may get higher weights compared to minor swaras and combinations.

Example 4: Most of the music in the world is confined to the four octaves: 4, 5, 6 and 7. However, majority of the musicians play in upper half of octave 4, octave 5, octave 6 and lower part of octave 7. Singers are limited to the two octaves 5 and 6, whereas gifted singers may sing with a range of 2.5 octaves. Using 12 notes in an octave, the 2.5 octave range needs 12X2 plus 6 = 30 notes. If required, we could choose 60 out of the 64 combinations of ACTG leaving out AAAA, CCCC, TTTT and GGGG. The 60 or 64 chosen combinations may be mapped to the swaras to cover the chosen octave range. For a raaga with five swaras, called "Audava" class in Indian music tradition, the composer has 60 or 64 combinations to be distributed to the 5 swaras per octave totaling 15 swaras for a three-octave range. The Jeeva swara and the Shadja may be assigned higher weights to get a higher share of the available combinations. For a raaga with 6 swaras, called "Shaadava" class in Indian music tradition, the composer may do the appropriate mapping with 18 swaras in the three-octave range and 84 combinations. A raaga with seven swaras is called a "Sampoorna" raaga. The composer enjoys enough latitude to demonstrate creativity to choose the mapping with appropriate weights for the swaras.

Automatic Genetic Music Composer (AGM) :

Murthy is developing a software that can automatically take a DNA sequence and convert it to a musical composition, based on user defined raaga, composition styles, templates and other requirements. AGM will have two versions: standalone software and web services software.

Murthy has already been actively composing genetic music. The compositions are available in the "GeneticMusic" Yahoo group.

Murthy is developing the AGM composer employing a management paradigm developed and pioneered by him decades ago called "Virtual Teams and Work Groups".

KRS Murthy : krs@sudeepaudio.com
The author is a San Jose based music scientist.