Machine Musicianship

Abstract

Musicians begin formal training by acquiring a body of musical concepts commonly known as musicianship. These concepts underlie the musical skills of listening, performance, and composition. Like humans, computer music programs can benefit from a systematic foundation of musical knowledge. This book explores the technology of implementing musical processes such as segmentation, pattern processing, and interactive improvisation in computer programs. It shows how the resulting applications can be used to accomplish tasks ranging from the solution of simple musical problems to the live performance of interactive compositions and the design of musically responsive installations and Web sites. Machine Musicianship is both a programming tutorial and an exploration of the foundational concepts of musical analysis, performance, and composition. The theoretical foundations are derived from the fields of music theory, computer music, music cognition, and artificial intelligence. The book will be of interest to practitioners of those fields, as well as to performers and composers.The concepts are programmed using C++ and Max. The accompanying CD-ROM includes working versions of the examples, as well as source code and a hypertext document showing how the code leads to the program's musical functionality.

Amplifying reflective thinking in musical performance

“…For example, the computer may be programmed to recognise certain musical phrases rather than individual notes. Application of various artificial intelligence (AI) techniques such as those described by Rowe [27] for example could enable a far richer interaction with the virtual environment.…”

Robot-human interaction with an anthropomorphic percussionist

“…In his book Machine Musicianship [13], Robert Rowe describes interactive systems that demonstrate musicianship as those that analyze, perform, and compose music with computers based on theoretical foundations in fields such as music theory, computer music, music cognition, and artificial intelligence. Several effective approaches for the design of such interactive musical systems have been explored over the years by researchers such as Dannenberg [3], Lewis [7], Cope [1], Pachet [9], and others.…”

Melody Description and Extraction in the Context of Music Content Processing

“…According to Rowe (2001), p. 168, "Music is composed, to an important degree, of patterns that are repeated and transformed. Patterns occur in all of music's constituent elements, including melody, rhythm, harmony and texture".…”