The short version here is that Bentley (second only to Rolls Royce in its Britishness) has cooked up a system that allows its cars to “compose a soundtrack based upon drivers’ inputs and driving style.” Basically, the vehicle takes various inputs from the driver and the road and then makes an instrumental composition on the fly to enhance the “emotional experience” of every drive. But before we delve into why this will most likely be bland, boring, and monotonous “soundscapes” of a quasi-new age music variety (remember that junk"), let’s go for a more basic overview first.

What Is Adaptive Music"

The funny thing is, I happen to know a lot about this subject from my career over the years. Bentley calls it “Adaptive Music,” but what it’s really called is generative music. This is an old electronic music compositional style that pre-dates Brian Eno by about 50 years. What you do is set up a bunch of parameters for sound generators and modifiers, push the go button and listen to it run. This is where Mr. Eno’s training in cybernetics worked so well for him. And this is also where my own training in electronic music and modern composition suddenly becomes relevant in a gearhead discussion.
Bentley has partnered with LifeScore, a company that calls itself the industry experts in adaptive music. That might be, but I’ve never heard of them, and I recoil at their terminology. The en...