Virtual Music: Computer Synthesis of Musical Style

Description

Virtual Music is about artificial creativity. Focusing on the author's Experiments in Musical Intelligence computer music composing program, the author and a distinguished group of experts discuss many of the issues surrounding the program, including artificial intelligence, music cognition, and aesthetics. The book is divided into four parts. The first part provides a historical background to Experiments in Musical Intelligence, including examples of historical antecedents, followed by an overview of the program by Douglas Hofstadter. The second part follows the composition of an Experiments in Musical Intelligence work, from the creation of a database to the completion of a new work in the style of Mozart. It includes, in sophisticated lay terms, relatively detailed explanations of how each step in the process contributes to the final composition. The third part consists of perspectives and analyses by Jonathan Berger, Daniel Dennett, Bernard Greenberg, Douglas R. Hofstadter, Steve Larson, and Eleanor Selfridge-Field. The fourth part presents the author's responses to these commentaries, as well as his thoughts on the implications of artificial creativity. The book (and corresponding Web site) includes an appendix providing extended musical examples referred to and discussed in the book, including composers such as Scarlatti, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Chopin, Puccini, Rachmaninoff, Prokofiev, Debussy, Bartok, and others. It is also accompanied by a CD containing performances of the music in the text. Cover ... 1 Preface ... 2 The CD ... 5 I Fundamentals ... 8 Chap1 - Virtual Music ... 9 Chap2 - Staring Emmy Straight in the Eye -- And Doing My Best Not to Flinch ... 39 Chap3 - Response to Hofstadter ... 89 Chap4 - Composing Style-Specific Music ... 99 Chap5 - The Importance of Patterns ... 115 Chap6 - Structure ... 132 II Processes and Output ... 143 Chap7 - Databases ... 144 Chap8 - Analysis ... 150 Chap9 - Themes and Variations ... 155 Chap10 - Interface ... 178Black, III Commentary ... 185Black, Chap11 - Composition, Combinatorics, and Simulation: A Historical and Philosophical Enquiry ... 187 Chap12 - Experiments in Musical Intelligence and Bach ... 220 Chap13 - Dear Emmy: A Counterpoint Teacher's Thought on the Experiments in Musical Intelligence Program's Two-Part Invention ... 235 Chap14 - Who Cares if It Listens? An Essay on Creativity, Expectations, and Computational Modeling of Listening to Music ... 261 Chap15 - Collision Detection, Muselot, and Scribble: Some Reflections on Creativity ... 280 Chap16 - A Few Standard Questions and Answers ... 289 IV Responses and Perspectives ... 302 Chap17 - Response to Commentaries ... 303 Chap18 - Perspectives and the Future ... 317 Bibliography ... 340Black, AppendixA - Mozart Databases ... 345 AppendixB - An Experiment in Musical Intelligence: Mozart Movement ... 368 AppendixC - An Experiment in Musical Intelligence: Mozart Reject ... 373 AppendixD - Virtual Music ... 379 AppendixE - The Game Key ... 546 Index ... 547