I keep thinking about what to call the automatically playing patches.  They are automatic in the sense that they continue autonomously after I make and adjust the patch.  But that can describe many types of patch that I tend not to make, such as ones with a regular beat.  My patches tend not to have a regular beat, but develop their own time structures.  The following quotes are taken from John Cage’s Silence.

Beating time is not necessary.  All that is needed is a suggestion of time…

Question:  Then what is the purpose of this “experimental” music?  Answer:  No purposes.  Sounds.

It is of the utmost importance not to make a thing but rather to make nothing.  And how is this done?  By making something which then goes in and reminds us of nothing.

Something that reminds us of nothing can only be itself.  It cannot be a sign of something else.  It is in this sense that such music is quite literally insignificant.  It does not signify.  It does not represent.  It does not express meanings. But it also seems to me that when listening to music we are always looking to find some self-similarity in different parts of it.  We hear some sounds and then later hear other similar sounds that remind us of the first ones.  Structures can be recognized as adhering to sounds.  But such structures do not signify.  The structures are also just themselves.

I seem to be following an ideal that would remove ‘ideas’ from sounds.  It’s difficult, because I keep having ideas!  And these creep into the sounds.  Sound layering with a looping pedal is an idea to achieve greater density.  Scale quantizers always impart a preconception to sounds.  Hearing a scale sequence reminds us of the scale; it adds significance (and cheaply, at that).  Making something that reminds us of nothing is not easy.  It requires giving up on ideas, but not all ideas.  Because it is an idea to make something that reminds us of nothing.  However, this idea isn’t that common, and people who happen to listen to my patches probably are not thinking of this idea.  It may be that (hopefully) their minds fail to find significance in what they’re hearing.  And if they are expecting significance, they’ll be disappointed.  Ironic, that if I succeed in making something that reminds us of nothing it could seem to be a failure to some listeners!  When in fact, according to Cage, they are failing to listen!

Where these ears are in connection with a mind that has nothing to do, that mind is free to enter into the act of listening, hearing each sound just as it is, not as a phenomenon more or less approximating a preconception.