AI-fragile 『愛フラジャイル』

AI-fragile, or 『愛フラジャイル』in Japanese, is an algorithmic composition that I wrote a couple of years ago.

Why such a strange name? Well, at the time I was learning about the concept of antifragility introduced by Professor Nicholas Taleb in his book “Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder”. Antifragile things are those that strive to survive and learn from crisis. I liked that concept very much! The idea of things having “a thirst for life” seemed to me very human and very clever too.

Now, the Japanese term『愛欲』(“ai-yoku”) means precisely this: “an eternal thirst for life”.

On top of this, the “Ai”『愛』kanji is pronounced the same way as a feminine Japanese given name, 『あい』, which of course can also e interpreted as a reference to Artificial Intelligence. The old manga “Video Girl Ai” 『電影少女』 couples nicely the above-mentioned ideas.

All the above was becoming a Maelström of ideas in my head; to boil it down a little, I decided to make use of the mentioned concepts by creating a musical composition.

So here's “AI-fragile” 『愛フラジャイル』, a piece in three parts:

The first one is for contrabass and percussions. I called it “愛”, “Ai”
The second is “フラジャイル”, i.e. “fragile”. It is played by tubular bells, African percussions, double bass and piano.
The third part, “AI-fragile” 『愛フラジャイル』, is for Taiko drums, koto, celesta, melodic tom, drums, and pizzicato strings.

I hope you'll like it! If so, “like” my page, please, and follow me on #bandcamp at eidon.bandcamp.com

Note: I read of the concept of 『愛欲』, “aiyoku”, in the book “Il pensiero giapponese classico” by Massimo Raveri.

#musiccomposition #algorithmicmusic #愛欲 #antifragile #NicholasTaleb #EidonVeda

Confucius said: – Elevate yourselves with odes, strengthen yourselves with rituals, complete yourself with music. (Confucius, Lun Yü (The Analects), Book 4, Chapter VIII T'Ai-Po, 192)

] (Picture by Unknown – This file has been extracted from another file: Ancientchineseinstrumentalists.jpg, Public Domain).

A man who is not charitable, what will he make out of music? (Confucius, Lun Yü (The Analects), Book 2, Chapter III Pa I, 43)

When he was in the kingdom of Ch'i, Confucius heard shao music: for three months [while studying it, he was so absorbed that] he did not perceive the taste of meat. “I never imagined,” he said, “that the music would go that far.” (Confucius, Lun Yü (The Analects), Book 4, Chapter VII Shu Êrh, 160)