Algorithmic Composition for Acoustic Instruments

Bruce Jacob developed an algorithmic composition system that produces scores for acoustic instruments.He is more interested in hearing it performed by live performers than realized upon synthesizers and samplers. He is also more interested in traditional instrumental music than the "beep snort growl" music heard in many computer music concerts and publications today.
He is a purist.

To this end, He has represented my personal composition methodology in a set of algorithms which his computer uses to write music for him. He has also developed a set of filters that "listen" to the music and grade it.
The system is comprised of several parts: one which generates music but pays no attention to the harmonic content, one which filters out the harmonic content that he does not care for, and one which takes small snippets and arranges them into larger pieces. The components are called the COMPOSER, EAR, and ARRANGER modules, respectively. The composer is hand-coded to produce music in a manner close to the way he does, and therefore the structure of the music is similar to that which he composes. The ear is evolved using genetic algorithms to become a filter approximating the way he listens to music. This architecture has been in development since the fall of 1994, coded in Perl5, and is about 5000 lines of code.

occam and nebula

The variations architecture has two implementations right now. The first, variations 1 or occam, focuses mostly on the EAR module, and how to use a musical filter to compose music with the least amount of human interaction. The second, variations 2 or nebula, focuses on the COMPOSER module and is concerned with thematic development. The first version of the system made simple variations on melodies and built up themes melody on top of melody. The newer version, in production as of this writing, is more intelligent at identifying the primary motives of the piece and extends them rather than simply modifying them.

I have his music in my research folder----and url to the site is

http://www.ee.umd.edu/~blj/algorithmic_composition/