Search

This paper presents a procedure which composes music pieces through handling four layers in music, namely pitches, rhythms, dynamics, and timber. As an innovative feature, the procedure uses the combination of a genetic algorithm with a synergetic variable neighbourhood search. Uniform and one-point crossover operators as well as two mutation operators conduct the search in the employed genetic algorithm. The key point with these four operators is that the uniform crossover operator and the first mutation operator are indiscriminate, in the sense of using no knowledge of music theory, whereas the employed one-point crossover operator and the second mutation operator are musically informed. Music theory is used for finding the suitability of its generated pieces. The method starts with generating an initial sequence of pitches with a musically informed module and then calculates the suitability of the pitch sequence through the embedded rules. The employed genetic algorithm applies the variable neighbourhood search method to its generated offspring genomes for increasing their quality. Pieces can be composed in major, minor, and harmonic minor scales based on the user's request. As well as composing the main notes, the procedure generates up to three chord notes associated with each main note and plays the result in a novel multithreading environment through running four threads concurrently. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports the first results of an innovative approach to modelling music cognition based on the emergent behaviour of interacting autonomous systems. A group of interactive autonomous singing robots were programmed to develop a shared repertoire of songs from scratch, after a period of spontaneous creations, adjustments and memory reinforcements. The robots interact with each other by means of vocal-like sounds. They use real sounds as opposed to software simulation. They are furnished with a physical model of the vocal tract, which synthesises vocal singing-like intonations, and a listening mechanism, which extracts pitch sequences from audio signals. The robots learn to imitate each other by babbling heard intonation patterns in order to evolve vectors of motor control parameters to synthesise the imitations. Models of the basic mechanisms underlying the emergence of songs are of great interest for musicians looking for hitherto unexplored ways to create music with interactive machines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the use of evolutionary and artificial life techniques in sound design and the development of performance mapping to facilitate the real-time manipulation of such sounds through some input device controlled by the performer. A concrete example of such a system is briefly described which allows musicians without detailed knowledge and experience of sound synthesis techniques to develop new sounds and performance manipulation mappings interactively according to their own aesthetic judgments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents an inquiry concerning the feasibility of using existing methods from the field of Music Information Retrieval (MIR) for automated annotation of acousmatic music. Thorough discussion and appraisal of the meaning and role of annotation in this context leads to our conclusion that: (i) full automation is not possible due to the lack of a ‘ground truth’ and the absence of semantic comprehension on the side of the computer, (ii) MIR can nevertheless play a valuable role by providing human annotators with tools for interactive annotation. We present two possible approaches to interactive annotation applied to compositions of acousmatic music, namely John Chowning's Turenas and Denis Smalley's Wind Chimes. We also discuss the potential impact of such semi-automatic annotation on the theoretical consideration and practice of acousmatic music. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]