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Chapter 5
Musical Virtuosity and Creativity
François Pachet
Abstract
Virtuosos are human beings who exhibit exceptional performance in their
field of activity. In particular, virtuosos are interesting for creativity studies because
they are exceptional
problem solvers
. However, virtuosity is an under-studied field
of human behaviour. Little is known about the processes involved to become a vir-
tuoso, and in how they distinguish themselves from normal performers. Virtuosos
exist in virtually all domains of human activities, and we focus in this chapter on
the specific case of virtuosity in jazz improvisation. We first introduce some facts
about virtuosos coming from physiology, and then focus on the case of jazz. Au-
tomatic generation of improvisation has long been a subject of study for computer
science, and many techniques have been proposed to generate music improvisation
in various genres. The jazz style in particular abounds with programs that create
improvisations of a reasonable level. However, no approach so far exhibits virtuoso-
level performance. We describe an architecture for the generation of virtuoso bebop
phrases which integrates novel music generation mechanisms in a principled way.
We argue that modelling such outstanding phenomena can contribute substantially
to the understanding of creativity in humans and machines.
5.1 Virtuosos as Exceptional Humans
5.1.1 Virtuosity in Art
There is no precise definition of virtuosity, but only a commonly accepted view that
virtuosos are human beings that excel in their practice to the point of exhibiting
exceptional performance. Virtuosity exists in virtually all forms of human activity.
In painting, several artists use virtuosity as a means to attract the attention of their
audience.
Felice Varini paints on urban spaces in such a way that there is a unique view-
point from which a spectator sees the painting as a
perfect geometrical figure
.The
