What can I use to trigger my Markov Chain?
Just at somewhat a writers block here. I’ve made a patch that receives messages from a game (pacman) via OSC, the objection of which is to let the game make generative music as it is played, I have a few markov chain patches that work nicely but what should/could I use to start making patterns?
How my markov chain works:
you input information manually and the patch starts taking the information you entered and plays it back algorithmically depending on the order and amount of information you use. (1st order Markov Chain).
The issue is, how do I use my pacman game to enter the information? I could make it so every time pacman eats a dot it will enter data. but what would the data be? If it was just notes then is there even much point in using a markov chain, it might as well just be completely random…. not sure whether I’ve been entirely clear, I can try and explain more if needed.
If you can help please let me know :)
maybe use the direction the player is going in at the time as well? or something that accumulates on direction plus dots eaten in that direction that would then reset each time direction is changed. Proximity to ghosts if you can calculate that?
you can surely have several different musical parameters being controlled by different combinations of input. these could then be ‘bundled’ together to create say, pitch, velocity and timing or maybe more complicated qualities such as timbre etc.
Don’t know if that helps get you thinking. Algorithmic composition isn’t really my forté