Emergent Phenomena (2023) for the TACETi Ensemble was composed in November of 2023, following the development of a sophisticated system for real-time structural analysis of live microphone input. A trio for alto saxophone, trombone, and electric guitar, the electronics are entirely generative, using a self-training machine learning system. A clustering algorithm alongside an index of data from rapid analysis searches for temporal points of spectral self-similarity across all three microphone inputs. When patterns in harmonic spectra, amplitude, and other musical parameters are recognized, the system gradually learns from what it hears and classifies these sonorities to create a temporal map of musical ‘objects’ in the work. This perpetually growing store of data is used to respond to the musicians accordingly with generative material. Four layers of generative electronics take place: Each “novel” sound that the computer perceives is immediately recorded into a series of perpetually recording buffers, which are categorized and written to disk. When the computer perceives a match between past and present, it retrieves the samples written at each point in the past to perform a variety of manipulations, based upon what is heard in the present moment. Secondly, based on the amount of time that has elapsed since the matching sample was taken, how many times it has occurred, and the spectral and musical characteristics of each “object”, the computer will combine discrete pre-recorded samples to generate a composite sound in response. Thirdly, each of the three microphone signals are processed according to perceived patterns and sonic data, such as amplitude, density of musical activity, or frequency spectra. Lastly, a variety of other processes are performed both on the input from the musicians, and from the sounds generated by the system itself. In each moment, this may result in new material similar to what is performed by the musicians, or new material in stark contrast to what it perceives, a dynamic, mercurial system which is learning and changing with each passing moment. This work was conceptualized while recovering from an injury in the Summer of 2023 outside of Berlin. Inspired by the lasting neurological effects this injury had on my body, which was contorting itself to protect my spine from further injury, I was struck by the behavior of my own human body as a complex system that in fact, I had little control over. Correspondingly, I felt renewed interest in developing new systems of interactivity between human musicians and machines. My goal was to create a work that does not rely on temporal synchronicity between electronics and the musicians, such as a click track or precise soundfile triggering, nor sensors and gestural tracking, but rather a system which truly responds to the spontaneous and nuanced details of the musical material itself, and the ways in which these sounds unfold over time to create complex networks. – Jason Thorpe Buchanan

“The emergence of life and intelligence from less-alive and less-intelligent components has happened at least once. Emergent behavior is that which cannot be predicted through analysis at any level simpler than that of the system as a whole…Emergent behavior, by definition, is what’s left after everything else has been explained.” ― George Dyson