Generating a complete multipart musical composition from a single monophonic melody with functional scaffolding

Amy K. Hoover, Paul A. Szerlip, Marie E. Norton, Trevor A. Brindle, Zachary Merritt, Kenneth O. Stanley

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

25 Scopus citations

Abstract

This paper advances the state of the art for a computer-assisted approach to music generation called functional scaffolding for musical composition (FSMC), whose representation facilitates creative combination, exploration, and transformation of musical concepts. Music in FSMC is represented as a functional relationship between an existing human composition, or scaffold, and a generated accompaniment. This relationship is encoded by a type of artificial neural network called a compositional pattern producing network (CPPN). A human user without any musical expertise can then explore how accompaniment should relate to the scaffold through an interactive evolutionary process akin to animal breeding. While the power of such a functional representation has previously been shown to constrain the search to plausible accompaniments, this study goes further by showing that the user can tailor complete multipart arrangements from only a single original monophonic track provided by the user, thus enabling creativity without the need for musical expertise.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Computational Creativity, ICCC 2012
EditorsDan Ventura, Mary Lou Maher, Alison Pease, Kristian Hammond, Rafael Perez y Perez, Geraint Wiggins
PublisherUniversity College Dublin
Pages111-118
Number of pages8
ISBN (Electronic)9781905254668
StatePublished - 2012
Externally publishedYes
Event3rd International Conference on Computational Creativity, ICCC 2012 - Dublin, Ireland
Duration: May 30 2012Jun 1 2012

Publication series

NameProceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Computational Creativity, ICCC 2012

Other

Other3rd International Conference on Computational Creativity, ICCC 2012
Country/TerritoryIreland
CityDublin
Period5/30/126/1/12

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Computational Theory and Mathematics

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