Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
There generally are two approaches to using computer-generated materials in
composition, which we refer to as the
purist
and
utilitarian
approaches, respec-
tively. The purist approach to computer-generated music tends to be more con-
cerned with the correct application of the rules programmed in the system, than with
the musical results per se. In this case, the output of the computer tends to be
considered as the
final composition. The composer would not normally modify the
music here, as this would meddle with the integrity of the model or system. At the
other end of the spectrum is the utilitarian approach, adopted by those composers
who consider the output from the computer as raw materials for further work. Here,
composers would normally tweak the results to
fit their aesthetic preferences, to the
'
extent that the system
final compo-
sition. Obviously, there is a blurred line dividing these two approaches, as practices
combining aspects of both are commonly found.
Symphony of Minds Listening
tends towards the utilitarian approach.
The composition of the piece evolved in tandem with the development of Mu-
sEng. MusEng was programmed with arti
s output might not even be identi
able in the
cial intelligence to learn musical
information from given examples and use this information to generate new music.
Incidentally, a few of MusEng
firstly applied manually to
compose a section of the piece, before they were implemented in software to aid the
composition of other sections. Indeed, a number of compositional processes did not
make it into the software on time. The symphony had a deadline to be delivered for
its premiere in February 2013, at Peninsula Arts Contemporary Music Festival, in
Plymouth, UK. The software development, however, is still in progress. And other
pieces are planned, and the compositional approach is being re
'
s functionalities were
ned as we write this
chapter; for instance
Corpus Callosum
, for a chamber group of 25 musicians.
For a discussion on how science and technology can inform and inspire the act
of musical composition, the reader is referred to Miranda (
2013
,
2014
). Both ref-
erences advocate the use of computers as assistants to the creative process, rather
than as autonomous composing machines.
For the composition of
Symphony of Minds Listening
, the
rst step was to
deconstruct the score of Beethoven
s piece into a set of basic materials for pro-
cessing. These materials were subsequently given to MusEng as input for a machine
learning phase, which will be explained in more detail in the next section of this
chapter.
First of all, Beethoven
'
'
s piece was divided into 13 sections:
Section 1: from measure 1 to measure 26
Section 2: from measure 26 to measure 50
Section 3: from measure 51 to measure 74
Section 4: from measure 75 to measure 100
Section 5: from measure 101 to measure 116
Section 6: from measure 117 to measure 138
Section 7: from measure 139 to measure 148
Section 8: from measure 149 to measure 183
Section 9: from measure 184 to measure 212
