Xenomusicology

Abstract Speculative xenomusicology explores alternative music theories, imagining the physical and cognitive affordances of alien musical life. Exoplanets are actively studied in astronomy, and though there is no direct evidence of xenobiology, particularly of more advanced musical intelligences, potential alien music may still be considered in advance in the same way that exobiologists speculate on the conditions for alien life. In particular, a generative system is presented which creates imagined xenomusic based on altering human memory constraints and links the organisation of the sound to the parallel generation of an alien language. Microtonal pitch, complex rhythm, timbral material and spatialisation within putative alien architectures are all considered. This alien ‘analysis by synthesis’ can provide new musical adventures and new understanding of the possibilities of music theoretical space, regardless of any eventual ontological resolution of xenocultures.