Dynamic Procedural Music Generation from NPC Attributes

Procedural content generation for video games (PCGG) has seen a steep increase in the past decade, aiming to foster emergent gameplay as well as to address the challenge of producing large amounts of engaging content quickly. Most work in PCGG has been focused on generating art and assets such as levels, textures, and models, or on narrative design to generate storylines and progression paths. Given the difficulty of generating harmonically pleasing and interesting music, procedural music generation for games (PMGG) has not seen as much attention during this time. Music in video games is essential for establishing developers\u27 intended mood and environment. Given the deficit of PMGG content, this paper aims to address the demand for high-quality PMGG. This paper describes the system developed to solve this problem, which generates thematic music for non-player characters (NPCs) based on developer-defined attributes in real time and responds to the dynamic relationship between the player and target NPC. The system was evaluated by means of user study: participants confront four NPC bosses each with their own uniquely generated dynamic track based on their varying attributes in relation to the player\u27s. The survey gathered information on the perceived quality, dynamism, and helpfulness to gameplay of the generated music. Results showed that the generated music was generally pleasing and harmonious, and that while players could not detect the details of how, they were able to detect a general relationship between themselves and the NPCs as reflected by the music

A Functional Taxonomy of Music Generation Systems

Digital advances have transformed the face of automatic music generation since its beginnings at the dawn of computing. Despite the many breakthroughs, issues such as the musical tasks targeted by different machines and the degree to which they succeed remain open questions. We present a functional taxonomy for music generation systems with reference to existing systems. The taxonomy organizes systems according to the purposes for which they were designed. It also reveals the inter-relatedness amongst the systems. This design-centered approach contrasts with predominant methods-based surveys and facilitates the identification of grand challenges to set the stage for new breakthroughs.Comment: survey, music generation, taxonomy, functional survey, survey, automatic composition, algorithmic compositio

Fatale, Fragile, and Furiosa: Redefining Female Tropes for a New Generation of Feminism in Jeanne Shaffer\u27s Three Faces of Woman for Clarinet and Piano

Among the discipline of music, the representation of women in music professions and the artform itself reveals great disparities between gender identities. In spite of this, musician and composer Jeanne Shaffer approaches the ongoing fight for women’s representation and equity in music. Shaffer’s piece “Three Faces of Woman” for clarinet and piano (1995) depicts three delineations of femininity that women are reduced to. Influenced by cultural minimalization of women, Shaffer’s piece uses different compositional genres as vehicles to illustrate these ever-present stereotypes and the unyielding need to combat them. The first movement presents the trope of the Femme Fatale; the seductive woman who knows her way around the block, but often leads people to their demise. Shaffer’s use of dotted rhythms and subtle syncopation within the Blues genre create an aural landscape that envelopes the listeners in the entrancing persona. Femme Fragile, written as berceuse, captures the domestic female identity of women. While the characteristic aspects of a lullaby are present, a compound meter with a rocking-like pulse, Shaffer further implements the symbolism of the fragile and domestic woman with timbral effects and an uncommon meter of 7/8, conveying the complexities of the tumultuous role. The final movement, the Feministe Furieuse, signifies a new dawn on the fight for women’s rights. The scherzo form and the Femme Furiosa trope suggest it to be a fiery yet dismissive explosion of rage, but Shaffer’s specific implementation of twisting a traditionally comedic and lighthearted form, infused with thematic materials from the prior movements, creates a much more hopeful approach. The intentionality in the intertwining of all three themes in the final movement prove to be a pivotal artistic contribution in not only women’s activism but in diversifying the traditional western canon

Fatale, Fragile, and Furiosa: Redefining Female Tropes for a New Generation of Feminism in Jeanne Shaffer\u27s Three Faces of Woman for Clarinet and Piano

Among the discipline of music, the representation of women in music professions and the artform itself reveals great disparities between gender identities. In spite of this, musician and composer Jeanne Shaffer approaches the ongoing fight for women’s representation and equity in music. Shaffer’s piece “Three Faces of Woman” for clarinet and piano (1995) depicts three delineations of femininity that women are reduced to. Influenced by cultural minimalization of women, Shaffer’s piece uses different compositional genres as vehicles to illustrate these ever-present stereotypes and the unyielding need to combat them. The first movement presents the trope of the Femme Fatale; the seductive woman who knows her way around the block, but often leads people to their demise. Shaffer’s use of dotted rhythms and subtle syncopation within the Blues genre create an aural landscape that envelopes the listeners in the entrancing persona. Femme Fragile, written as berceuse, captures the domestic female identity of women. While the characteristic aspects of a lullaby are present, a compound meter with a rocking-like pulse, Shaffer further implements the symbolism of the fragile and domestic woman with timbral effects and an uncommon meter of 7/8, conveying the complexities of the tumultuous role. The final movement, the Feministe Furieuse, signifies a new dawn on the fight for women’s rights. The scherzo form and the Femme Furiosa trope suggest it to be a fiery yet dismissive explosion of rage, but Shaffer’s specific implementation of twisting a traditionally comedic and lighthearted form, infused with thematic materials from the prior movements, creates a much more hopeful approach. The intentionality in the intertwining of all three themes in the final movement prove to be a pivotal artistic contribution in not only women’s activism but in diversifying the traditional western canon

Emotion-Guided Music Accompaniment Generation Based on Variational Autoencoder

Music accompaniment generation is a crucial aspect in the composition process. Deep neural networks have made significant strides in this field, but it remains a challenge for AI to effectively incorporate human emotions to create beautiful accompaniments. Existing models struggle to effectively characterize human emotions within neural network models while composing music. To address this issue, we propose the use of an easy-to-represent emotion flow model, the Valence/Arousal Curve, which allows for the compatibility of emotional information within the model through data transformation and enhances interpretability of emotional factors by utilizing a Variational Autoencoder as the model structure. Further, we used relative self-attention to maintain the structure of the music at music phrase level and to generate a richer accompaniment when combined with the rules of music theory.Comment: Accepted By International Joint Conference on Neural Networks 2023(IJCNN2023

Music Appreciation (Georgia Gwinnett College)

This Music Appreciation textbook was created under an ALG Round Five Textbook Transformation Grant. The original copy was presented in five modules, which are provided as separate files. Authors\u27 Description: The author of this text has intentionally kept it general in nature in order to create a platform for those who want to expand content into more in depth studies of the mentioned concepts and traditions. I believe that appreciation of any subject comes from open-minded exposure to that topic. With the arts this generally must happen at a moment when the message and meaning of the work resonates naturally with the appreciator. Each instructor of music appreciation brings a unique expertise in differing genres. I encourage you to utilize this text along with musical examples of your choice. The music appreciation specific goals (found in the syllabus) vary between individual classes as the instructors see fit. These goals will be achieved by those who have competently met all of the requirements of the course. For the course that this text accompanies the goals for each student are: To gain basic exposure to the elements of music and their treatment in music To learn historical and cultural signifiers in a diverse body of music • To approach listening to music actively/analytically and to reflect on the experience To understand the factors that contribute to musical style in their own music and music presented in the course To gain knowledge about differing musical aesthetics and trends To become more knowledgeable and sensitive to varied human expression through music If we endeavor together to reach these course goals the successful student will be able to: Describe elements of music that s/he hears, employing correct musical terminology Place music into an appropriate historical and cultural context Listen critically and discuss a wide variety of musical styles Analyze the stylistic features of a diverse group of musical styles Identify nationalistic tendencies in musical expression Identify musical diversity and aspects of our global society Accessible files with optical character recognition (OCR) and auto-tagging provided by the Center for Inclusive Design and Innovation.https://oer.galileo.usg.edu/arts-textbooks/1004/thumbnail.jp

An examination of the keyboard technique of Bach, Haydn, Chopin, Scriabin and Prokofiev

Master's Project (M.Mu.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2016In this research paper, I will explore the keyboard technique of each composer presented in my recital: J.S. Bach, Franz Joseph Haydn, Frederic Chopin, Alexander Scriabin and Sergei Prokofiev. I hope to elucidate the physical approach used by each composer, and show in turn how that same approach influenced the music of each composer by analyzing the pieces performed in my recital. To understand the distinct technique of the composers, it is important to know some context. The instrument each composer wrote for necessarily influenced their technique and resulting composition. However, the instrument cannot explain every facet of technique, and it becomes necessary to understand the underlying aesthetics of technique. Moving chronologically from Bach to Prokofiev, a general trend of expansion in the use of the hand and arm will be seen throughout. Keyboards became louder and heavier in touch and the hand faced greater reaches in every generation. The technique of Bach and Haydn was largely focused on compact and relaxed hands with distinct finger movements, while Scriabin and Prokofiev at the other end require sweeping gestures that occupy the entire arm. However, it would be too easy to present this progression as a story that technique is only getting better and better, implying that the older composers were inferior to the later. That is simply false. Instead, extended study of each composer shows that many technical principles are universal. The baroque keyboardists were likely playing with more weight than popularly imagined and one cannot play Scriabin with mittens on the hands

Data Musicalization

Data musicalization is the process of automatically composing music based on given data, as an approach to perceptualizing information artistically. The aim of data musicalization is to evoke subjective experiences in relation to the information, rather than merely to convey unemotional information objectively. This paper is written as a tutorial for readers interested in data musicalization. We start by providing a systematic characterization of musicalization approaches, based on their inputs, methods and outputs. We then illustrate data musicalization techniques with examples from several applications: one that perceptualizes physical sleep data as music, several that artistically compose music inspired by the sleep data, one that musicalizes on-line chat conversations to provide a perceptualization of liveliness of a discussion, and one that uses musicalization in a game-like mobile application that allows its users to produce music. We additionally provide a number of electronic samples of music produced by the different musicalization applications.Peer reviewe

Three Flute Chamber Works by Alberto Ginastera: Intertwining Elements of Art and Folk Music

Alberto Ginastera’s output includes three chamber works containing the flute, all composed within the period of objective nationalism (1934-1947), a designation provided by the composer to encompass those works that present folk elements in an overt manner in a largely tonal framework. Impresiones de la Puna and Cantos del Tucumán, written in 1934 and 1938 respectively, contain salient folk elements and are thus representative pieces of this stylistic period. In addition to folk characteristics, these early works also contain pitch-class sets which serve to unify the pieces, thereby suggesting future elements of the composer’s style. The Duo for Flute and Oboe, composed in 1945, toward the end of the period of objective nationalism, in many respects presents features more in alignment with the subsequent period of subjective nationalism (1947-1958), a period characterized by the subtle presence of folk elements. The use of a twelve-tone series to generate much of the melodic and harmonic material in the Duo, the quartal harmonies, and the neo-classical style suggests a new compositional approach for Ginastera. Yet a closer examination reveals that the Duo shares many of the same set classes with the two prior pieces. In addition, folk elements continue to be present in a subtle manner in the melodic, harmonic, rhythmic, and formal aspects of the piece, often tightly intertwined with the art music elements, such that it is possible to view the same entity from both an art and a folk music perspective. The analyses of the three chamber works focus on salient art and folk music elements, and how these characteristics are integrated to create these pieces. The analyses thus provide a glimpse into Ginastera’s compositional development, as well as revealing facets of Ginastera’s later style that are present in these early works. Advisor: John R. Baile