Ensemble³:

Ensemble³ is a project where two musicians and a Python script collaborate, in real time, to perform a coherent piece of music, partly improvised and partly composed. The codebase produces generative audio (improvisation) based on a set of programmed rules (composition). The result is not the same from time to time, but stays within the framework of a pre-defined tonal and rhythmic language that makes it possible to respond musically. The musicians' task is to improvise over the machine-generated sound, in addition to performing composed passages and having overall control, in order to create a meaningful sonic result.

Initially, the project was about adding AI to the creative process, as an active component, but has changed and is now about using available (AI) tools to build a third voice, a voice with stubborn will, a certain degree of unpredictability and musical autonomy. Since what is interesting in a collaboration between man and machine ultimately revolves around how the parties' performing interest in an ongoing musical process can be maintained, and how this can result in a result that has a satisfactory artistic value, programmed algorithms are a tool that is complex enough. This also means that I avoid a number of ethical issues.

Ensemble³ will have a permanent participant (Jonas Sjøvaag), a participant with local roots, in addition to the programmed side. There is thus also a conceptual side where the goal is to be able to perform the works with different musicians and to allow them to influence the artistic result.

As of 2025 the concept of Ensemble³ has resulted in an upcoming record, Jonas Sjøvaag's Drift Engine "III", with Sjøvaag (drums), Juhani Silvola (guitar) and Andreas Ulvo (keys). It can be previewed here.
 

Both Ensemble3 and the band are the most current results of Sjøvaag's ongoing work as an artistic researcher, employed at the University of Agder since 2022.