Query-based Deep Improvisation

In this paper we explore techniques for generating new music using a Variational Autoencoder (VAE) neural network that was trained on a corpus of specific style. Instead of randomly sampling the latent states of the network to produce free improvisation, we generate new music by querying the network with musical input in a style different from the training corpus. This allows us to produce new musical output with longer-term structure that blends aspects of the query to the style of the network. In order to control the level of this blending we add a noisy channel between the VAE encoder and decoder using bit-allocation algorithm from communication rate-distortion theory. Our experiments provide new insight into relations between the representational and structural information of latent states and the query signal, suggesting their possible use for composition purposes

Remembering the future: An overview of co-evolution in musical improvisation

Musical improvisation is driven mainly by the unconscious mind, engaging the dialogic imagination to reference the entire cultural heritage of an improvisor in a single flash. This paper introduces a case study of evolutionary computation techniques, in particular genetic co-evolution, as applied to the frequency domain using MPEG7 techniques, in order to create an artificial agent that mediates between an improvisor and her unconscious mind, to probe and unblock improvisatory action in live music performance or practice

A New Dataset for Amateur Vocal Percussion Analysis

The imitation of percussive instruments via the human voice is a natural way for us to communicate rhythmic ideas and, for this reason, it attracts the interest of music makers. Specifically, the automatic mapping of these vocal imitations to their emulated instruments would allow creators to realistically prototype rhythms in a faster way. The contribution of this study is two-fold. Firstly, a new Amateur Vocal Percussion (AVP) dataset is introduced to investigate how people with little or no experience in beatboxing approach the task of vocal percussion. The end-goal of this analysis is that of helping mapping algorithms to better generalise between subjects and achieve higher performances. The dataset comprises a total of 9780 utterances recorded by 28 participants with fully annotated onsets and labels (kick drum, snare drum, closed hi-hat and opened hi-hat). Lastly, we conducted baseline experiments on audio onset detection with the recorded dataset, comparing the performance of four state-of-the-art algorithms in a vocal percussion context

Harmony and Technology Enhanced Learning

New technologies offer rich opportunities to support education in harmony. In this chapter we consider theoretical perspectives and underlying principles behind technologies for learning and teaching harmony. Such perspectives help in matching existing and future technologies to educational purposes, and to inspire the creative re-appropriation of technologies