The Future Of Music Is Reactive

In the early days of automobiles, people called them "horseless carriages", and their design was defined by horse buggies.

Just as horseless carriages seem a little ridiculous now, our concept of MP3 players could seem archaic in a few years.

Portable media players are turning into powerful mobile computers, yet most of what we listen to on them is static recordings, fixed in time as recorded music has been for a hundred and twenty years.

Andy Farnell and Robert Thomas have a different idea about the future of music. They are putting together an album of reactive music to be released on the RjDj platform on the iPhone. Reactive music is designed to incorporate your environment and your actions into the music that you hear, in a musically sensible way.

In this video, Farnell and Thomas discuss reactive music and their new techno album, Kids On DSP.

This is a fascinating idea, but it's a lot easier imagining these ideas being incorporated into techno or ambient music than other genres.

Do you think reactive music will find a significant place in the future of music? Leave a comment with your thoughts!

James Lewin
Twitter @podcasting_news

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matt Searles    Said...

well.. I can totally see how you could create algorithmic heavy metal.. so I don't see why you couldn't make any sorta music sound this way.. depending on the power of the tools.

Still, I don't really imagine this kind of thing replacing recorded music any time soon.. Maybe one day the tools will have the right kind of maturity, and people will be carrying enough processing power around with them that.. this really could be a big thing.. and clearly this sorta thing is sorta already a thing for like.. interactive media.. but I imagine in the end we'll have both

12-Jul-09 05:11 AM

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