Ded Hour

Spring 2015

course

home

navigation

Algorithmic Composition : Computer Composed Celtic Fiddle Tunes

me: Jim Mahoney, Computer Science, Marlboro College

author: Abe Stimson, Marlboro class of 2008

Abe's work - 2008, Marlboro college

first: play a Celtic fiddle tune
a computer version: tune generator
poster
Abe's plan
Culminated with Abe & his Dad in a public performance or traditional & computer celtic tunes, with audience voting on which was which.

how a computer can "compose" music

model tune as a markov chain, i.e. probabilities describing a pattern
note transition probabilities from real celtic tunes
abc (text) notation makes it simple for computer program to work melodies
twinkle-twinkle-little-star example: pg 16 of Abe's plan.

Celtic tunes & ABC notation

thousands of melodies already in text form
... so it's easy to get them into a computer program to analyze
example: the old bush
lots of reels in abc notation
(See e.g. http://abcnotation.com/tunes )
EasyABC - Mac software for ABC notation

the details

abe chose constant-time piece (e.g. 1/4 measure) for state
... so one state in markov could be one or several notes
stm (state-transition-matrix) derived from o'neil reels
instead of probabilities use equivalent multiple stm entries
in some versions of output, also analyzed & generated repitition pattern

a full-fledged example of this approach

http://artsites.ucsc.edu/faculty/cope/
amazon.com/Algorithmic-Composer-Computer-Music-Digital/dp/0895794543
amazon.com/Computer-Models-Musical-Creativity-David/dp/0262033380
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Cope ("Bach by Design", "Virtual Mozart")
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Howell (computer composer)

http://cs.marlboro.edu/ courses/ spring2015/dedhour/ algorithmic_composition
last modified Saturday February 14 2015 2:31 pm EST

attachments

name last modified size