Oxford Handbook of Algorithmic Music

With the ongoing development of algorithmic composition programsand communities of practice expanding, algorithmic music faces aturning point. Joining dozens of emerging and established scholarsalongside leading practitioners in the field, chapters in thisHandbook both describe the state of algorithmic composition andalso set the agenda for critical research on and analysis ofalgorithmic music. Organized into four sections, chapters explorethe music's history, utility, community, politics, and potentialfor mass consumption. Contributors address such issues as the roleof algorithms as co-performers, live coding practices, anddiscussions of the algorithmic culture as it currently exists andwhat it can potentially contribute society, education, andecommerce. Chapters engage particularly with post-humanperspectives - what new musics are now being found throughalgorithmic means which humans could not otherwise have made - and,in reciprocation, how algorithmic music is being assimilated backinto human culture and what meanings it subsequently takes.Blending technical, artistic, cultural, and scientific viewpoints,this Handbook positions algorithmic music making as an essentiallyhuman activity.