Automatous Monk
Automatous Monk was a composer and pianist. He was born in Duluth, Minnesota in 1912 and died in 1964 in Minneapolis.
Tell me about your history? How did you get where you are now?
Legend has it that Automatous Monk met the mathematician Alan Turing while visiting a niece in Princeton, New Jersey. (Turing was studying at Princeton University at the time.)
Monk and Turing met by chance in a coffee shop in Princeton. Turing explained to Monk the concept of Turing machines, which are basically the equivalent of computer programs. Monk, who had a mathematical bent, despite a lack of much formal training, picked up on Turing's ideas quickly and wondered whether they could be applied to music composition.
Working in a spare bedroom in his house in Duluth, Monk painstakingly wrote simple Turing machine and cellular automata programs that generate musical melodies even though he had no computer to run these programs. These programs (written in Big Chief tablets) were later found in his attic by his great-nephew, Paul Reiners, a programmer, and translated into Java.
Have you performed live in front of an audience? Any special memories?
Automatous Monk made his living as a jazz pianist in bars and clubs mostly in the Twin Cities area.
Your musical influences
Bach, Chopin, Alan Turing, The Beatles, Morton Feldman
