Years ago I was playing around with simple ideas to make generative music. My idea was simple, just make a script that goes through an array of samples and plays them. What I discovered and read up on after making this script work was how ‘sets’ appear. So something purely random can still create recognisable patterns.

It’s like that lad you know who does random stuff but you see distinct patterns in their adventures. On my reading journey I discovered that the company Apple, on making the iPod found they had to tweak the randomised playlists to avoid too many sets appearing. To make the randomness seem more random.

The irony of all of this was the random function was actually random. The most random shit is actually kind of predictable. That is kind of strange but makes sense as things exist within some kind of format or maybe form is a better word. There are certain boundaries. It is like how a style appears in art or design. Every designer who does it in that way adds that random function to own it.

Avoiding sets also depends on the volume of objects but it was not something I felt I could work out so I abandoned the project. It was more something I would do on a holiday break, also I was more interested in learning than making something. Most projects like that open up a lot of ideas and lead you into some other direction.