OT: Programmed/Hand made music (was: Random word generators (was Re: Worthwhile Engelang Goal))

Hi!

Jörg Rhiemeier <joerg_rhiemeier@...> writes:
...
> Henrik Theiling <theiling@...> wrote:
>...
> > Jörg writes:
> > >...
> > > > zbr&xp
> > > >
> > > > That's a possible Gweydr word, but I just *hate* it!  And until
> > > > someone's life depends on my lexical choices, I'm not willing to
> > > > let such a word into my language--at least not for "water".
> > >
> > > I have similar reservations against random word generators, though
> > > I never used any.  I feel that they are to conlanging what rhythm
> > > machines are to music.
> >
> > I *love* electronic music if it's programmed well! :-)
>
> It is of course a matter of taste.  I prefer hand-made music
> (especially progressive rock - which often uses plenty of electronic
> sounds, but they don't come from a robot, but are played manually
> on keyboards), and also hand-made conlangs.  Your mileage may vary.
Indeed, it's a matter of taste.  What exactly is 'progressive rock'?

But: programmed doesn't mean a machine made it.  On the one hand, I
love inhumanly precisely placed beats that a human programmed manually
to be where they are.  E.g. break beats that appear from silence to
culminate mechanically precisely in a certain beat.  On the other
hand, this is programmed by humans to be just this way, and it
fascinates me in two ways: a) that a human understood that *this*
sequence of beats is great, b) that a computer is able to produce them
at a precision impossible for humans.  Only a) makes them special.
b) is the controlled precision that I like.  The human makes the
great pattern, the computer executes it at impossible precision.
That's what I like a lot.  (To name an album: ,Kumo - Kaminari'.)

That's for music.  For conlangs, random generators feel good if the
words they produce are weighted well so that the resulting language
feels right.  The human makes the rules and the random generator
executes them without feelings, i.e., without bias. :-)

**Henrik

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