Reactive music is a form of music that first emerged in 2009. Drawing on Pure Data programming language, reactive music is a non-linear form of music that adapts to the listener’s environment. While there are theoretical similarities to generative music, reactive music for the first time opens the idea of a constantly evolving, fluidly changing musical experience to a wider audience.

Reactive music works through new media gadgetry by connecting a musical scene to environmental noises through sensory data in real-time. Therefore, the musical experience is not static as it heavily relies on the listener’s settings.

Reactive music breaks with previous patterns of listening to music as the musical substance and artistic base properties are subdued to continuous, fluid change, turning the environment into an interface for composition. This creates a reciprocal effect on environmental perception and questions previous models of passive mediated privacy^[1]. In this context, it allows for an active manner of constructing daily-life environments.

With reactive music, traditional notions of music production and consumption are fundamentally jeopardised. As consumers are able to influence the musical experience itself, they become recording artists. The traditional notion of the musician who creates a musical piece according to his/her artistic vision must be assigned to the creators of musical scenes (e.g. Kids on DSP). As the transformation of environmental noises into musical elements cannot be realised with traditional sound carriers, media devices like Apple’s iPhone are currently deployed for the genre. Pioneering in this field is London based company RJDJ, who provide reactive music applications for the iPhone.

• Reactive Music Example
• Reactive Music Label RJDJ

Category: Kids on DSP Category: RJDJ