Welcome

Music 270C: Compositional Algorithms
--------
Spring 2007
Mondays 2-5, Mandeville 125

The course will be divided between composition and research in the following way:
- Composition: we will cover the basics of OpenMusic and read the OM Composers Book for analysis of some compositions.
- Research: we will cover some basic algorithms, mostly from AI
(Artificial Intelligence) perspective.

The focus here is on adding "listening / learning" capabilities to music algorithms for more intuitive interaction and less formal "programming" approaches.

The topics to be covered in the research part include (but are not limited to):
Visualization of tonal content: works by Krumhansl, Chew
NN / SOM: Toiviainen
Stochastic Models: Conklin, Dubnov
HMM: Allan, Farbood
Improvisation and Reinforcement Learning: Assayag, Cont
Jazz Chord Grammar: Steedman, Chemillier
Old fashioned AI: Cope

Assignments: students will have a choice between a composition
project or a research paper (or combination of both). You will have to choose a topic or a piece and talk about it in class. This will help determine what will be your final presentation. Part of the class will be devoted to follow up and discussion of works in progress.