Exploiting functional relationships in musical composition

    Authors

    A. K. Hoover;K. O. Stanley

    Comments

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    Abstract

    The ability of gifted composers like Mozart to create complex multipart musical compositions with relative ease suggests a highly efficient mechanism for generating multiple parts simultaneously. Computational models of human music composition can potentially shed light on how such rapid creativity is possible. This article proposes such a model based on the idea that the multiple threads of a song are temporal patterns that are functionally related, which means that one instrument's sequence is a function of another's. This idea is implemented in a program called NEAT Drummer that interactively evolves a type of artificial neural network called a compositional pattern-producing network, which represents the functional relationship between the instruments and drums. The main result is that richly textured drum tracks that tightly follow the structure of the original song are easily generated because of their functional relationship to it.

    Journal Title

    Connection Science

    Volume

    21

    Issue/Number

    2-3

    Publication Date

    1-1-2009

    Document Type

    Article

    First Page

    227

    Last Page

    251

    WOS Identifier

    WOS:000266280300009

    ISSN

    0954-0091

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