Bang on a Can

Amalia's Secret was written with a synthesis of techniques involving human performance, music software systems and artificial intelligence. I like to be surprised, to be flooded with possibilities, and use computers in a loose way, scrambling things, creating surrealistic, dadaistic experiments. Four years ago I wrote a version of computer software that generated automatic composition for my group Doctor Nerve. I restructured that program for Amalia's Secret. With this software, I push a button, the computer thinks for 30 seconds, then plays two or three minutes of raw material--music. It's a very careful listening experience, you need to separate what the software typically does from stuff that happens only once. You develop a trust, a primitive intuition. Maybe once out of three or four times, I'll hear something worth keeping and I'll save it, load it into a commercial arranging program, add phrases, cut and paste. Everything is extensively rearranged. Some material I perform live into the computer myself. There are a lot of blurry boundaries in this way of working. I'm interested in that ambiguity. -Nick Didkovsky