After a long time of inactivity, I’m bringing back to life MAIDENS, my project of creating a computer aided algorithmic composition software program.
To make a somewhat longer history shorter, the first (modest) prototype of MAIDENS launched in the first days of 2014, following six months of dedicated, full time hard work. A couple bug fix releases followed. My health didn’t quite keep up with all the effort, in fact it is back then when it started deteriorating. At that time, I was, for some strange reason, expecting a vivid interest from both art music community and the music industry. They never quite materialized, although there was some encouragement from both sides — both art and business people found it interesting and some told me not to give up.
Over the rest of 2014, despite my exhausting efforts of promoting the prototype and drawing people and money around it, both my savings and dreams of starting a joint venture fell flat. After failing to crowdfund the project on Indiegogo, and while being faced with an ever worsening condition due to continued effort, I decided that I need to reevaluate my options.
Therefore, the project was left in a limbo for several years, especially during my Master in Classical Composition at the UNMB (2014 – 2016) — which proved to be, against all expectations, quite challenging. By mid 2016, I had completed my Master in Composition, and learned about similar attempts of building a business around computer music: none of them was actually successful. So I decided to ditch my business plans and reanimate MAIDENS as a scholar project.
Which brings us to present time, where MAIDENS is included as a by-product of my Musicology PhD thesis on algorithmic aspects in musical composition. I restarted development as well — with notable results actually: the latest available version is more capable than the prototype — but I work at much a reduced pace, and against a more relaxed calendar. Time will tell what will become of MAIDENS. Nevertheless, I do expect for that PhD title it hangs on to prove auspicious.