Classifications

• • G—PHYSICS
  • G10—MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS; ACOUSTICS
  • G10H—ELECTROPHONIC MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS; INSTRUMENTS IN WHICH THE TONES ARE GENERATED BY ELECTROMECHANICAL MEANS OR ELECTRONIC GENERATORS, OR IN WHICH THE TONES ARE SYNTHESISED FROM A DATA STORE
  • G10H1/00—Details of electrophonic musical instruments
  • G10H1/0008—Associated control or indicating means
  • G10H1/0025—Automatic or semi-automatic music composition, e.g. producing random music, applying rules from music theory or modifying a musical piece
• • G—PHYSICS
  • G10—MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS; ACOUSTICS
  • G10H—ELECTROPHONIC MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS; INSTRUMENTS IN WHICH THE TONES ARE GENERATED BY ELECTROMECHANICAL MEANS OR ELECTRONIC GENERATORS, OR IN WHICH THE TONES ARE SYNTHESISED FROM A DATA STORE
  • G10H2210/00—Aspects or methods of musical processing having intrinsic musical character, i.e. involving musical theory or musical parameters or relying on musical knowledge, as applied in electrophonic musical tools or instruments
  • G10H2210/031—Musical analysis, i.e. isolation, extraction or identification of musical elements or musical parameters from a raw acoustic signal or from an encoded audio signal
  • G10H2210/061—Musical analysis, i.e. isolation, extraction or identification of musical elements or musical parameters from a raw acoustic signal or from an encoded audio signal for extraction of musical phrases, isolation of musically relevant segments, e.g. musical thumbnail generation, or for temporal structure analysis of a musical piece, e.g. determination of the movement sequence of a musical work
• • G—PHYSICS
  • G10—MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS; ACOUSTICS
  • G10H—ELECTROPHONIC MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS; INSTRUMENTS IN WHICH THE TONES ARE GENERATED BY ELECTROMECHANICAL MEANS OR ELECTRONIC GENERATORS, OR IN WHICH THE TONES ARE SYNTHESISED FROM A DATA STORE
  • G10H2210/00—Aspects or methods of musical processing having intrinsic musical character, i.e. involving musical theory or musical parameters or relying on musical knowledge, as applied in electrophonic musical tools or instruments
  • G10H2210/101—Music Composition or musical creation; Tools or processes therefor
  • G10H2210/125—Medley, i.e. linking parts of different musical pieces in one single piece, e.g. sound collage, DJ mix
• • G—PHYSICS
  • G10—MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS; ACOUSTICS
  • G10H—ELECTROPHONIC MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS; INSTRUMENTS IN WHICH THE TONES ARE GENERATED BY ELECTROMECHANICAL MEANS OR ELECTRONIC GENERATORS, OR IN WHICH THE TONES ARE SYNTHESISED FROM A DATA STORE
  • G10H2240/00—Data organisation or data communication aspects, specifically adapted for electrophonic musical tools or instruments
  • G10H2240/075—Musical metadata derived from musical analysis or for use in electrophonic musical instruments
  • G10H2240/085—Mood, i.e. generation, detection or selection of a particular emotional content or atmosphere in a musical piece

Definitions

• This invention relates, in general, to signal processing [by an apparatus] of an audio input signal to split that signal into fundamental constituent data elements, and the mathematical functions thereof necessary to reproduce this signal as well as a plethora of new signals, with differing internal structural properties and differing boundary conditions that permit, through mapping and/or textural classification, the identification of both permissible linkages between constituent data elements and subsequent generative output from the identified mathematical functions, concatenated re-assembly into a different signal with a different structure. More particularly, the present invention relates to a system supporting original generative composition, not just recombination of existing material especially in the context of music and how an original composition can be generated to align with and reflect an emotionally descriptive narrative, such as a described scene in a film script.
• the present invention relates to a process for identifying and parsing, in existing tonal (as well as non-tonal) music, Form Atoms of varying length and where each Form Atom defines a contextually smallest meaningful snippet or element of musical content having both boundary conditions and compositional properties that permit automated concatenation of multiple Form Atoms into a new musical composition having good musical form but at least acceptable musical form.
• ‘Good’ music - in the sense of an artistically appreciated structured composition - is music that the mind (i.e., relevant neural pathways and centres of the brain) models successfully by being able to predict both an increase in tension within a musical journey and then the following release of that tension.
• this can be thought of as a compositional piece asking a question, as reflected in musical phrasing or musical structure, and then the compositional piece answering that question [shortly after the question has been posed] to permit mindful termination of a particular part within the entirety that is the musical journey in the composition.
• the question is thus a construct of tension in the music, and the release of a construct that correlates to an appropriate musical answer that puts the change in tonality into perspective.
• a more complete definition is provided below for these terms to enhance the reader’s understanding of what these semantic terms mean in a more technical sense.
• the reward system refers to a group of structures that are activated by rewarding or reinforcing stimuli.
• a rewarding stimulus such as good music
• the brain responds by increasing the release of the neurotransmitter dopamine.
• the structures associated with the reward system are found along the major dopamine pathways in the brain, including the ventral tegmental area (VTA) and the nucleus accumbens in the ventral striatum.
• Another major dopamine pathway travels from the VTA to the cerebral cortex and is also considered part of the reward system.
• “bad music” or bad composition or “bad form” corresponds to reduced reward/gratification that arises from the brain’s inability to predict anything from seemingly /ostensibly meaningless random [musical] events, and thus the brain’s inability to congratulate itself with a reward arising from stimulation.
• a significant and unaddressed problem that has prevented the effective automated generation of “good” music is “form”.
• the question is how to implement technically a process that does not generate randomness and which technical system is imbued with a technical mechanism that provides consistent evaluation of signal components initially to classify fundamentally compatible musical sections and then to permit those musical sections to be automatically selected and concatenated together seamlessly to provide a new generative composition; this is far from simple.
• Templates provide a pre- structured structure on which the desired narrative is hung.
• a template can, for example, be sonata form or a rondo and other forms, as will be understood.
• the first movement of any symphony or concerto will share an identical form but a different narrative, e.g.
• A-B-A-B-C and then D where A is the first subject in the major/dominant tonic, B is a contrasting key centre to the major/dominant tonic and A and B together form the “exposition”, C is the conflict between A and B (which is also known as the “development”) and D is the “recapitulation” or resolution of A and B.
• Form in contrast with “narrative” [the latter being what one intends to express musically, i.e., the story between a beginning and end point as expressed by a set of emotional icons such as intensity swells and climaxes], is the structure of linking musical elements together in a musically sensible fashion that avoids discontinuity or randomness (in musical terms) such that a smooth transition is achieved between the syntax of the composite elements.
• “good form” may be the syntax reflected in codes and conventions in accepted musical compositions, whereas “bad form” has no obvious or known linking that makes any discernible musical sense between successive musical elements/phrases and, indeed, “bad form” [in music] will fail to communicate structure because the sound signals cannot logically be processed by the brain.
• identification of common musical traits in splice compatible musical elements is desirable and useful to game developers and/or advert or film trailer producers/editors who are tasked with rapidly compiling a suitable multimedia product that aligns relevant music themes, such as increasing musical intensity (in the context of an increasing sense of developing drama and urgency and not necessarily in the context of an absolute audio power output level) with video output.
• relevant music themes such as increasing musical intensity (in the context of an increasing sense of developing drama and urgency and not necessarily in the context of an absolute audio power output level) with video output.
• the generation of an appropriate film score is a first example.
• the film director will write a narrative reflecting the evolution of action in a scene and will then approach a composer for a suitable composition.
• the composer will review the narrative and attempt to tailor a composition to the narrative in the provision of a “demo” to the client, such as a film director or game designer.
• music for films, TV and adverts follows a similar commissioning and production pattern.
• a composer is commissioned typically by a director or producers. Their choice of the composer is either based on a musical showreel, or through the fact that the commissioner knows the composer’s specific discourse and desires it for their project.
• a temp track is typically used to aid in the editing process as well as to give an idea for the type of pace and mood that the commissioner wishes the film to have at specific points.
• the composer and commissioner then meet for what is known as a “spotting session”. In this meeting, the parties view the temp track and discuss the project in terms of where the music should start and stop, a process known as spotting.
• This iterative process of film score multimedia composition may - or may not - lead to a composition that has “good form”, and it will involve again the film director in making a decision as to whether the remotely composed score is acceptable with the requisite level of “good form”.
• the composer as indicated above, is likely also to be influenced by their own prior compositions and, frequently, will make use of these personal templates in composing the “new” musical work.
• the use of such personal templates which generally means that they have accepted form qualities, invariably leads to a score that is “samey”; this is not necessarily a good thing. For example, there are noticeable common traits in the compositions of the main themes for the movies Superman ® and Star Wars ® since both were penned by John Williams.
• an effective bank of cross-referenced musical elements that are contextually related to each other in the sense of “form” would beneficially facilitate effective generative composition for alignment with, for example, a visual sequence or the building of a musical program (such as occurs within film score development, TV or streamed advertising and “spin” classes that choreograph cycling exercise to music to promote work rates).
• an interactive game provides no tailored user-experience with respect to the accompanying musical score.
• “it is what it is” for the particular aspect of the game or scene in a game and just reflects base programming.
• the sound experienced in terms of musical textures can provide an enhanced indication for the user as viewed from the emotional perspective of the on-screen avatar.
• gaming systems provide no audible suggestion of in-game issues that the avatar is facing/experiencing and this is to the detriment of the physical player experience.
• Generative music compilers do exist. These existing systems typically use some form of Markov process to generate chords, but all have a series of algorithms that produce different notes across different instruments.
• the problem with the prior art approaches is that they support little if any creativity and little if any ability to manipulate compositional content.
• the prior art approaches all generally produce compositions that sound the same because all generated composition is based on a fixed number of predefined instmmental templates. The consequence of this straight-jacketing approach is a loss of musical texture. This is a significant problem which diminishes usability because of the resultant sameness.
• chord schemes There are various methods for writing chord schemes that have been implemented over the years (C. Johnson, Carballal, & Correia, 2015; Lerdahl & Jackendoff, 1996; Nierhaus, 2009).
• the aesthetic valuation for any given method is based on the developer’s artistic requirements, justifications, post-rationalisations, or simple tolerances.
• Experience in fact shows that it can be considered acceptable for any chord to follow any other chord given enough context in the surrounding harmonic progression.
• chord to follow another one if this context is ignored and we only look for evidence of the sequence in an example, we find our in the position whereby chord schemes simply become a randomised sequence.
• a cadence is a melodic or harmonic configuration that creates a sense of resolution [finality or pause], especially since any cadence has decreasing emphasis.
• a harmonic cadence is a progression of (at least) two chords that concludes a phrase, section or piece of music.
• a rhythmic cadence is a characteristic rhythmic pattern that indicates the end of a phrase.
• a cadence can be weak or strong depending on its sense of finality. While cadences are usually classified by specific chord or melodic progressions, the use of such progressions does not necessarily constitute a cadence; there must be a sense of closure as at the end of a musical phrase.
• harmonic rhythm plays an important part in determining where a cadence occurs. Cadences are also strong indicators of the tonic or central pitch of a passage or piece of music.
• the tonic is the first scale degree of the diatonic scale (the first note of a scale) and the tonal centre or final resolution tone that is commonly used in the final cadence in tonal (musical key-based) classical music, popular music, and traditional music.
• the tonic note is sung as do.
• the tonic is the note upon which all other notes of a piece are hierarchically referenced.
• Scales are named after their tonics: for instance, the tonic of the C major scale is the note C.
• the term tonic can also be referred to as a the keycentre.
• the local tonic e.g., Cm or Bb, provides both the first and last notes of the scale.
• chord is a series of pitches played in parallel with each other and which are tied to a keycentre. In terms of function, the mind makes use of a chord to predict where it is in the composition. A chord does not in its own right have any lexicological meaning because musical meaning is derived from the syntax, i.e., the sequence of chords.
• chord scheme is a chain of chords.
• a metachord scheme are the principals of how a chord scheme is written.
• Major and minor scales are two of the most popular and commonly used scales in western music, with a set of notes each with a distinct pitch forming the scale.
• Major and minor scales are variations of the diatonic scale in which there are pitch intervals of five full steps and two half steps, with the relative pitch/physical displacement of the third note determining whether the scale is major or minor.
• This third note makes the major scale brighter and more cheerful sounding while giving the minor scale its characteristic sadness, melancholy and darkness.
• the third note is one note higher than the minor 3rd note.
• a diatonic scale is any heptatonic scale that includes five whole steps (whole tones) and two half steps (semitones) in each octave, in which the two half steps are separated from each other by either two or three whole steps, depending on their position in the scale. This pattern ensures that, in a diatonic scale spanning more than one octave, all the half steps are maximally separated from each other (i.e. separated by at least two whole steps).
• An octave is the difference in pitch between two notes where one has twice the frequency of the other. Two notes which are an octave apart always sound similar and have the same note name, e.g., C, while all of the notes in between sound distinctly different, and have other note names e.g., D, E, F, etc. Notes naturally fall into groups of twelve, which are all one octave apart from each other. An octave thus comprises 12 equal semitones, with each semitone therefore having a frequency step in a ratio of 2 1/12 to the earlier frequency.
• a three-note chord [which incidentally is a “triad”] can have varying note spacing between the three notes of: for a minor triad, 3 semitones followed by 4 semitones; for major triad, 4 semitones, followed by 3 semitones; for an augmented triad, 4 semitones, followed by 4 semitones; and for a diminished triad, 3 semitones, followed by 3 semitones.
• a dominant 7th is where the [piano] chord includes a fourth note that is a degree/scale note down from the 8th (i.e. the repeating note in the next octave), whereas a major 7th is where the chord includes a fourth note that is a semitone down from the 8th.
• Instruments have idiomatic restrictions. For example, a conventionally tuned 4-string bass guitar, the lowest MIDI value is position 28. Conversely, a violin will only generally be able to play two notes simultaneously with these having a lowest note having a MIDI value 55.
• a generative composition system reduces existing musical artefacts to constituent elements termed “Form Atoms”. These Form Atoms may each be of varying length and have musical properties and associations that link together through Markov chains.
• a set of heuristics ensures that musical textures between concatenated musical sections follow a supplied and defined briefing narrative for the new composition whilst contiguous concatenated sections, such as Form Atoms, are also automatically selected to see that similarities in respective and identified attributes of musical textures for those musical sections are maintained to support maintenance of musical form.
• Independent aspects of the disclosure further ensure that, within the composition work, such as a media product or a real-time audio stream, chord spacing determination and control is practiced to maintain musical sense in the new composition.
• a new and complementary but independent technical approach structures primitive heuristics to maintain pitch and permit key transformation.
• a generative composition system comprising: an input coupled to receive a briefing narrative describing a musical journey with reference to a plurality of emotional descriptions for a plurality of musical sections along the musical journey; a database comprising a multiplicity of music data files each generating, when instantiated, an original musical score and wherein each original score is partitioned into a multiplicity of identifiable concatenated Form Atoms having self-contained constructional properties and where each has: a tag that describes a compositional nature of its respective Form Atom; a set of chords in a local tonic, and a progression descriptor in combination with a form function that expresses musically one of a question, an answer and a statement, and wherein musical transitions between Form Atoms are mapped to identify and then record established transitions between Form Atoms in multiple original scores and such that, within the system, groups exist in which Form Atoms are identified as having similar tags but different constructional properties; and processing intelligence responsive to the briefing narrative and coupled to the
• the database may include heuristics in the form of meta-data containing information explaining how to reconstruct original musical artefacts as well as alternatives thereto.
• the Form Atom may be assembled into a string of form atoms that generate a string of chord schemes with associated timing.
• the system can include chord spacer heuristics arranged to distribute chords across a stipulated time window.
• the system intelligence may be arranged to process chord schemes to instantiate textures where texture notes are derived from chords and their associated timings.
• Each Form Atom has minimal length and different Form Atoms may embody different musical durations.
• a subset of the tags may be semantically identical.
• each Form Atom never includes a tonic in a middle section of the Form Atom.
• Each Form Atom will have a specific set of chords in a local tonic expressed as interval distance relative to the local tonic having both pitch and tonality.
• the Form Atom stores a chord type and a chord’s bass.
• the database store lists of Form Atoms that are linked to lists of preceding or following Form Atoms through Markov-chain associations that identify, from a corpus of artefacts, prior transitions that have worked musically with good form.
• Form Atoms provide harmonic structure and an ability to generate harmonic structures that obey compositionally good musical form.
• Form Atoms may have associations to a list of mapped textural components which define texture for the composition and which permit, when selectively chosen and written with chord scheme chains, maintenance of textural continuity in the generative composition.
• a method of generative composition comprising: receiving a briefing narrative describing a musical journey with reference to a plurality of emotional descriptions for a plurality of musical sections along the musical journey; assembling a generative composition having regard to the briefing narrative through selection and concatenation of Form Atoms having tags that align with emotional descriptions timely required by respective ones of the plurality of musical sections; and selecting and substituting Form Atoms from different original scores into the generative composition, the substitute Form Atom: derived from any original score; and having its compositional nature aligned with the emotional descriptions; and wherein each original musical score is partitioned into a multiplicity of identifiable concatenated Form Atoms having self-contained constructional properties and where each has: a tag that describes a compositional nature of its respective Form Atom; a set of chords in a local tonic, and a progression descriptor in combination with a form function that expresses musically one of a question, an answer and a statement; and mapping musical transitions between Form Atoms
• a method of analysing a musical score containing a plurality of musical sections comprising: identifying the presence of an emotional connotation associated with a musical texture in the plurality of sections and wherein the musical texture is represented by a plurality of identifiably different compositional properties, and wherein: i) the musical texture has an emotional connotation; and ii) each musical texture of any musical section is expressed musically in terms of the presence of musical textural classifiers selected from a set containing multiple pre-defined musical textural classifiers and such that: a) different musical sections may include a differing subset of pre-defined musical textural classifiers; b) for a given musical section, each pre-defined musical textural classifier has either zero or at least one component to that textural classifier and wherein each component that is present is further tagged as either a musical accompaniment or a musical feature and where each musical textural classifier that has a component present possesses: i) either no musical feature or
• the textural classifier may be selected from a group comprising at least some of melody, counter-melody, harmony, bass, pitched rhythm, non-pitched rhythm and drums.
• a musical feature is a salient musical component in musical texture; and contains information about musical tension and release within the musical section and which tension and release would be musically contextually destroyed if the musical feature were to be combined with another musical feature in the musical section and in the same pre defined musical textual classifier.
• An accompaniment does not interfere with another accompaniment or a feature in any specific textual classifier of a musical section and can be added or removed selectively to thicken or thin the texture of the musical section.
• a method of providing texture in an automated generative composition process comprising: generating at least one chord scheme to a narrative brief, wherein the chord scheme is based on Form Atoms and the narrative brief provides an emotional connotation to a series of events; and apply derived texture to the at least one chord scheme to generate a composition reflecting the narrative brief.
• the method may further comprise identifying absence of a textural narrative in a first musical section concatenated with a second music section having a texture profile; and filling the first musical section with at least one component that is a musical accompaniment or a musical feature selection wherein the at least one component is based on one of: history of preceding textural classifiers and a continuation of a dominant one of the textural classifiers, else a logical bridge between a destination subset of pre-defined musical textural classifiers based on intensity of respective subsets.
• Effective generative composition thus leads to a tangible technical effect, particularly through the production of a generative work that has “good form”.
• the embodiments achieve this through a categorization process in which technical properties linked to Form Atoms, of non standard varying duration, are extracted and stored relative to a descriptor of expressive qualities of each Form Atom.
• a relationship map is established between different Form Atoms such that the technical properties exhibited by one Form Atom can be concatenated with those properties of an adjacent Form Atom in a fashion where the transition in musical terms between adjacent Form Atoms has perceptibly good form. This approach underpins the ability to produce automated generative composition.
• each Form Atom includes: a tag that describes a compositional nature of its respective Form Atom; a set of chords in a local tonic, and a progression descriptor in combination with a form function that expresses musically one of a question, an answer and a statement.
• a question is a chord scheme that suggests tension requiring mental settlement as indicated by notes that have appeared within a harmony or melody and which are questionably present because they are outside of the key centre of the local tonic of the Form Atom; an answer is the resolution of the question which operates to -77- resolve the presence of the questionable tones or notes from the mind’s perspective by reinforcing the key centre of either the local tonic or any new tonic of the answering Form Atom; and a statement is entirely self-contained from a musical question and doesn’t imply or induce any meaningful musical tension that requires release through resolution, and a statement is neither a question nor an answer.
• Each Form Atom provides harmonic structure and an ability to generate harmonic structures that obey compositionally good form.
• a musical Form Atom in a database containing a multiplicity of selectable Form Atoms, each Form Atom arranged provide harmonic structure and an ability to generate harmonic structures that obey compositionally good form.
• the present invention functions to reduce chords to their relational position to the base tonic, while maintaining pitch relationships arising in any transposition between different keys/tonics.
• the chain of transitions is then maintained.
• the relationship between chords is expressed by the degree of the scale.
• an F note in the scale would be expressed as a value I, a Bb as a IV and a C as a V.
• This approach therefore leads to an equivalency between chord schemes irrespective of the chosen tonic and is maintainable across both major and minor scales (or any chosen degree of scale that departs from the exemplary context of a 7-note Western scale as used herein).
• Middle C on the piano would have a MIDI value 60 and position I,
• E on the piano would have a MIDI value 64 and position III
• F on the piano would have a MIDI value 65 and position IV
• Gb on the piano would have a MIDI value 66 and position Vb,
• a on the piano would have a MIDI value 69 and position VI,
• chords can be measured in the context of its local tonic/key centre by an integer, and that relationships can be established between chords rather than just sequencing of specific chords.
• aspects of the present invention therefore analyse and then parse music to deduce various heuristics permitting generation of musical textures as well as performance parameters and the building blocks required for assuring quality of final assembly /performance of processor-originating generative work.
• a classification mechanism allows for different instmmental components to be used in different compositional contexts, thereby allowing brand new textures to be created through combining principals of different compositions.
• the beneficial result is a generative composition that follows a brief, i.e., a narrative provided by a client, and which consequently is musically relevant, formalistically variable (since, unlike the prior art approaches, it is not formalistically tied to a template) and which has audibly - and thus reward centre rewarding - good musical form.
• the present disclosure provides a multiplicity of complementary yet inventively different technical solutions.
• the processing mechanisms function to compress an original musical composition through a series of mathematical functions [having correctly applied parameters] that support both the reproduction of the original composition/score as well as myriad other alternative generative composition that satisfy human requirements of predictive tension and release that stimulate the reward centre of the brain to promote dopamine release.
• correct parameters amount to the application of mathematical choices based on developed core heuristics, i.e., rules, together with a sequential ordering of execution of these core heuristics.
• the invention applies an Occam’s Razor approach, i.e., generative mathematical functions should be the simplest to support the objective reproduction of the original musical intent, to selection of heuristics in the various generative aspects of the approach, such as in (a) pitch generation, (b) pitch transformation into a new tonic, (c) chord spacing that maintains the rate of play of generative chords in the generative composition and (d) texture maintenance in the generative composition.
• Examples of such mathematical functions can include the axioms that a bass note in transposition cannot be below the lowest note on a bass guitar or a score for a transposed violin component can maximally only relate to play two notes simultaneously.
• the present invention produces alternative generative musical works that are equally satisfiable to the mind from a process that identifies compatible musical elements from different musical sources/scores and concatenates complementary generative heuristics/mathematical functions.
• FIG. 1A is a diagram illustrating composition approach in the prior art
• FIG. IB is a diagram illustrating compositional approach of the present invention.
• FIG. 2A shows a prior art sketch of the final score to The High and the Mighty ⁇
• FIG. 2B shows a prior art formal final score to The High and the Mighty ⁇
• FIG. 3 is a representation of texture classification and generative assembly according to an embodiment of an aspect of the present invention
• FIG. 4 is a representation of texture classification and generative assembly and in which an intermediate musical section has been unspecified and “filled” to provide texture continuity according to an embodiment of an aspect of the present invention
• FIG. 5 is a hierarchical task flow for the generative compositional system of a preferred embodiment
• FIG. 6 represents, according to an embodiment, assemblage of permissible inter-
• FIG. 7 shows the Affordances of a heuristic mechanism with hierarchical and logical flow as practiced by the approach of embodiments of the present invention
• FIG. 8 is a schematic view of a preferred composition architecture and methodology for generative composition
• FIG. 9 shows, according to a preferred embodiment, how a single composition is parsed into a set of trees with viable Form Atom branches
• FIG. 10 is a schematic representation of texture generation according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention
• FIG. 11 is a screen shot of a graphical user interface for a piece annotation system according to one embodiment of the present invention
• FIG. 12 is a chord placement chart representing a spacing heuristic for use in one embodiment of the present invention.
• FIG. 13 is a sequential Form Atom template for use in one embodiment of the present invention
• FIG. 14 is a portion of The Quidditch Match musical score by John Williams annotated for reduction and analysis according to an implementation of the present invention
• FIG. 15 is an intervallic template representing a loop of sequence Form Atom 3, with escape Form Atom 4, derived from The Quidditch Match composition according to an implementation of the invention
• FIG. 16 is a template representing a Form Atom 6 sequential cadence derived from The Quidditch Match composition according to an implementation of the invention.
• FIG. 17 is a template representing sequence and escape phrases 7 and 8 derived from The Quidditch Match composition according to an implementation of the invention.
• FIG. 18 is a musical score of a four-bar section of detache string writing enhanced according to one implementation of the invention with associated colour labels that indicate note pitch;
• FIG. 19 is a musical score of the first two bars of the Prelude in C Minor by Johann Sebastian Bach modified according to one implementation of the invention by highlighting syntactic structures and note pitches according to a predefined colour scheme;
• FIG. 20 is a table showing degrees of the scale of semiquaver 3 with relation to the local dominant of the corresponding bar, in an analysis of texture according to the invention
• FIG. 21 is an exemplary diagram according to an implementation of the invention that expresses musical notes within Bars 1 to 3 of the Bach prelude as a numerical array;
• FIG. 22 is an alternative exemplary diagram according to an implementation of the invention that expresses musical notes within Bars 1 to 3 of the Bach prelude as a numerical array;
• FIG. 23 is another exemplary diagram according to an implementation of the invention that expresses musical notes within Bars 4 to 6 of the Bach prelude as a numerical array;
• FIG. 24 is a table illustrating changes in the pattern in the bass at semiquaver 5, including direction of the pattern, the chord component on which the 5th semiquaver in the bass lands, and the 5th’ s position in either the Treble T or bass B;
• FIG. 25 is another exemplary diagram according to an implementation of the invention that expresses musical notes within Bars 7 to 9 of the Bach prelude as a numerical array;
• FIG. 26 is another exemplary diagram according to an implementation of the invention that expresses musical notes within Bars 10 to 11 of the Bach prelude as a numerical array;
• FIG. 27 is another exemplary diagram according to an implementation of the invention that expresses musical notes within Bars 12 to 14 of the Bach prelude as a numerical array;
• FIG. 28 is an image of a Wilhelm Friedemann Bach manuscript copy of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Bar 14, C minor prelude 1, from the “Clavier-Buchlein version”;
• FIG. 29 is an exemplary diagram according to an implementation of the invention that expresses musical notes within Bars 15 to 17 of the Bach prelude as a numerical array;
• FIG. 30 is an exemplary diagram according to an implementation of the invention that expresses musical notes within Bar 18 of the Bach prelude as a numerical array;
• FIG. 31 is a musical score representation of the Bach prelude according to an implementation of the invention that uses color-coded heuristics showing hierarchical flow and highlighted points of entropy;
• FIG. 32 is a musical score representation according to an implementation of the invention of all possible combinations (spanning an octave) of major and minor triads with C and Eb as the top extensions;
• FIG. 33 is an image of a keyboard representation showing possible notes within textures of Bars 19 and 20 of the Bach prelude according to an implementation of the invention.
• the system may be referred to as the “Heresy generative system”, “generative composition system”, or other appropriate descriptive tag for a computer-implemented system that oversees a real-world application of a new mathematical analysis and re-assembly approach within an applied technical process applying a Turing equivalency that results to an improved technical output.
• the invention considers, as a corpus, potentially all compositions as a source for analysis, reference and input into the generative system.
• the invention functions to extract (either through digital analysis through signal processing by AI or processor-based intelligence or otherwise by a musicologist) certain specific compositional principles from a given composition or multiple compositions, thus allowing the invention to blend principles from different works into one distinctive/discrete meta-composition.
• Applying an Occam’ s Razor based approach these compositional principles are expressed as a set of heuristics/rules that can subsequently create new generative works.
• NLP Natural Language Processing
• An effective categorisation strategy may be the Estil method of vocal training (Klimek, 2005). This abstract connotation-labelling method offers a viable alternative to trying to attach words with semantic meaning to music, the pitfalls of which are highlighted in (G. A. Wiggins, 1998).
• the system of the invention and preferred embodiments provide a framework for crafting iterations in composition. It offers a way for users to state an intent (in the form of an inputted narrative or brief that is interpreted and correlated to heuristics and thus salient musical sections that can be concatenated together in an auditory seamless fashion), and then, indeed, to adjust quickly the output from this briefing specification.
• the system of the present invention offers the ability to define a set of compositional ideas, before auditioning them and listening to how effectively they communicate the original intention. Nevertheless, the chosen ones will change every time the system is asked to generate a new composition, whilst form is protected.
• the inventive approach takes this principle one step further in that it offers the ability to see which generative expression is potentially “wrong”.
• the system of the present invention makes a shift of roles from traditional film-scoring methods. Where composers have traditionally relied on technological tools by programmers and engineers (such as streamers and click- tracks), and sequencing software for demoing their material; and whilst commissioners have taken a selective role in choosing material presented to them, such as Steven Spielberg did with the themes for both Indiana Jones (Laurent, 2003) and the Close Encounters five-note motif (Meeker, 1978), the system of the present invention shifts these roles; this is reflected in the comparison of approaches shown in the commissioner/user/composer/programmer delineations of FIGS. 1A and IB.
• the approach underlying the present invention is based on an understanding of composition, and particularly the act of composition, in a conceptually different way, namely: showing how the next note in the audio signals follows an earlier note (as expressed in rules associated with the generation thereof and the length of a fundamental musical component that expresses fundamental audio signal components of a musical section) a rather than what the note actually is.
• the principle of composition requires a method of analysis, with iterations of generated heuristics applied to refine the concept for composition.
• a processor-based system and related methodology differs from systems of earlier approaches in that the present invention makes each of the processes, decisions and weighting factors [that go into composition] the core on which the system can abstract the principles for how to generate these new compositional works.
• the system of the present invention break downs composition from scratch and creates generative mechanisms for the specific piece.
• a linear increase in heuristics encompasses an exponentially increasing number of works.
• new compositions preferably should increasingly incorporate past analytical components, and therefore give increasing compression progress to a universal set of heuristics that explain previous and future compositions.
• New heuristics must explain more than one phenomenon. If a set of new rules only explains one core compositional component from a specific piece, then this is a bespoke ruleset and should be omitted until evidence from the corpus can provide further examples of where the heuristics are appropriate. This avoids over fitting rules to analysis of composition, and causing bloat and noise in the pursuit of seeking a more unified understanding of composition. In practical terms, fewer rules will be required to explain new compositions by (at least) the same composer, or for those compositions that are connected through similarity in genre or time.
• a heuristic pack may produce piano preludes in the style of Bach, or action movie music in the style of John Powell. These packs can then be meta-tagged with information about the intention of the content and its emotional connotation(s).
• the present invention is capable of predicting the immediate path for a new composition at a specific point, thereby offering a new mechanism in the field of composition for reflection on practice, and refinement of the categorisation of emotional connotations.
• synced tracks that is tracks that have been pre-recorded by an artist and then superimposed to accompany the action (pop, rap, and such the like)
• these tracks are often the starting point in the editing room and form the basis of the pace and style of the cut.
• These bring sub-cultural identities to the film, grounding it in genre, or lending the connotations of a certain culture to the film.
• a quintessential example of this is the use of “Hotel California” by the Gipsy Kings in The Big Lebowski.
• the viewer is given a reinterpretation of the original song, which itself has a laid-back, and somewhat melancholy treatment in both lyrics and musical feel.
• chord scheme properties (a) The number of chords across time[[.]]; (b) Modulations and shifts in tonality; and (c) Emotional connotation keywords that can be associated with different chord scheme properties: (i) Use of pedal notes as chords change; (ii) The use of a cycle of fifths to move through key centres; and (iii) Functional properties of a chord scheme, such as the beginning or end of a cue.
• the complete system of the present invention is based on aspects of textural and melodic output as harmonic sequences of chords. It therefore uses such sequences to form sections of the piece and set its pace.
• Chord schemes in the case of the generative system of the various embodiments and aspects, therefore have two distinctive properties: (i) their form function, and (ii) their emotional connotations.
• the system is arranged to permit annotation of information/stored data for any given section to reflect that this data:
• the system is functionally arranged to reference different compositional components’ connotations with meta-tags that make their reproduction easy, but which leave their interpretation open to the user’s briefing/narrative.
• the briefing may be processed using NLP techniques to cross-correlate coded musical sections with similar or identical language expressed in the narrative that is input to the system. NLP techniques are well-known.
• emotional connotations take the form of generic variable keywords (or short key phrases) which have user specific meaning. These are initially named as Mode 1... Mode n, but can be changed depending on the user’s preferred lexical meaning.
• Compositional heuristics (such as methods for creating specific chord sequences, textures, melodic contours, chord-spacing heuristics, note generators, and rhythm generators) have these keywords attached to them.
• the generative mechanism operates to select appropriate heuristics to create these connotations at each instance in the timeline where they are requested by the user.
• the system of the various embodiments provides a mechanism that maintains musical texture and particularly constrains requests for insertion of adjacent musical components (e.g., Form Atoms) that would clash, such as asking for seven melodies at the same time or three bass lines.
• adjacent musical components e.g., Form Atoms
• the system intelligence firstly generates a set of heuristics and applies a technical approach to the identification and use of a set of musical components [for instruments], such as stings (e.g., a viola), offset horns, a harp arpeggio, pizzicato-bass.
• Identification can be achieved using Music Retrieval technologies to create a MIDI representation of the original score, or simply the original score itself stored in MIDI format.
• Each of these musical instrument components is further classified, according to an aspect of the invention associated with final assembly of a composition, to have one of two attributes, namely the component may either be a “feature” or an “accompaniment”.
• a [musical] feature can be considered to give temporal sense, awareness and gravitas, i.e., contributing significance, to a musical section.
• a musical feature is thus a salient sonic component in the texture space of the musical section, i.e., it itself contains information about tension and release and which information would be destroyed in the event that a second feature co-existed in a common textural classifier even if that second feature is played by an entirely different instrument.
• An accompaniment is complementary musical fluff that is inessential but provides richness and tonality to a textural classifier.
• each musical section there is also one or more semantic descriptors associated with each musical section, such as a Form Atom.
• the descriptors will generally be derived by a musicologist who has critiqued a musical section of an existing piece of music and, indeed, within an overall corpus of musical artefacts in a library.
• a musical component or collection of musical components can be grouped together and correlated/tagged with a semantic descriptor, such as “raunchy”, “warm”, “gritty/slez”, “floaty”, “pounding”, “victorious”, “pronounced”, “calm”, “both smooth and pronounced at the same time”, as well as with broader semantic descriptors such as “loud”, “sexy”, “exciting” and more other descriptive connotations, including “light Spring day” and “shimmery woodwind”.
• a semantic descriptor such as “raunchy”, “warm”, “gritty/slez”, “floaty”, “pounding”, “victorious”, “pronounced”, “calm”, “both smooth and pronounced at the same time”
• semantic descriptors such as “loud”, “sexy”, “exciting” and more other descriptive connotations, including “light Spring day” and “shimmery woodwind”.
• Different musical sections may contain the same semantic descriptor or a similar sematic descriptor that has some common descriptive connotations, but then again the same semantic descriptor in different musical section may have different instmmental components and/or differing numbers of instrumental components.
• the semantic descriptors are therefore linked or associated, such as within metadata, to the respective musical section. Semantic descriptors can therefore be associated with just a single instrument component, or otherwise assembled from a subset of instrument components or groups of subsets (either mutually exclusive or overlapping) of instrument components or from groups of textural classifiers. The granularity is user-selectable.
• the system Whilst it could be possible for the system to store the texture classifiers for each section with each section or provide a direct record, it is preferred that the system intelligence applies a set of heuristics, e.g., computation parameters, to generate the respective attributes (having regard to historical records of what combination of instrument components are linked or closely associated with particular descriptors).
• heuristics e.g., computation parameters
• instrument components within a particular textural classifier e.g., melody
• features in the same textural classifier would be mutually destructive.
• a single textual classifier may contain zero or a multiplicity of instrument components acting as accompaniments but no more than one (if any) instrument components fulfilling the role of a feature.
• multiple features may exist so long as the multiple features are distributed across the textural classifiers (and not within a single textural classifier.
• the descriptor “pounding” in musical section 4 of “Piece 1” is comprised from four (4) textural classifiers, namely bass, pitched rhythm, non-pitched rhythm and drums. It just so happens that “pounding” is actually a subset of a more general descriptor “victorious” which further includes a melody as well as a harmony.
• the semantic descriptor “pounding” actually has eight individual instrument components, with one being a feature component “F” in the bass textual classifier, two individual instrument components being accompaniments in the textural classifier pitched- rhythm, three individual instrument components being in the non-pitched rhythm of which one is a feature and two are accompaniments, and two individual instrument components being in the drums (textural classifier) on which one is a feature (such as a floor Tom) and one is an accompaniment (e.g., a snare).
• the number of instrument components is represented in each textural classifier as either a blank/nothing (in absent), or the letter “F” for a feature or one or more letter “As” to represent the number of instrument accompaniments.
• the system intelligence functions to look for commonality in descriptors between musical sections and, importantly, the contributory nature of the components associated with each of those descriptors to identify usable instrument components (or entire descriptors) that can complement one another across different musical sections in any future generative composition.
• the system intelligence thus identifies the bass accompaniment to be usable for expressing an emotional connotation of one or a combination of “gritty”, “slez” and/or “floaty”.
• the linkages (shown by dotted lines in FIG. 3) just show how, potentially, the system intelligence can insert musical texture derived from analysis of a musical corpus into a new composition that follows a briefing note pounding followed by warm and smooth followed by victorious and pronounced, and with a time-varying intensity that drops between the start of musical section 1 and the end of musical section 2, then levels off during musical section 3 before sharply rising and then remaining constant in musical section 4 before again sharply rising at the start of musical section 5 before tailing off to zero intensity.
• musical sections are not representative of discrete time scales and there may, in fact, be a multiplicity of Form Atoms present within each musical section.
• FIG. 4 there is shown a succession of musical sections 40-48 for a first piece of music 49 and a succession of musical sections 50-58 for a first piece of music 59, with the first and second pieces of music forming a [limited] “corpus” of artefacts.
• the textural classifiers 60 have been restricted to four, namely melody, harmony, bass and drums and are presented from the perspective of a simplified macro perspective (rather than with textural descriptors with sub-classifications and more complex inter-relationships).
• contributory derivative musical components are drawn or assembled into the generative composition 70 from similar descriptors analysed by the system and parsed from individual musical section in the corpus; the relationship is shown by the lines with arrow heads.
• a brief has been input into the processing system of preferred embodiments, such as through touchscreen or other computer interface.
• the brief stipulates an intensity pattern 62-66 for musical sections 1, 3 and 4, but no narrative for musical section 2 that must thus be filled from all perspectives of the invention as described in totality herein, including texture continuity.
• the system intelligence of the preferred embodiments firstly looks to assemble a musical section that is both “rough and warm”. There is no corresponding overall texture having the descriptor, so the processing system assembles the components of “rough” from Piece 1 and “warm” from Piece 2. These are entirely complementary since they have no feature in a common. The textual classifier and the overall intensity is high so there is no particular need for the system to reduce the number of accompaniments. This therefore generates:
• the third musical section is narrated as being “exciting”.
• a directly corresponding texture that can be lifted from musical section 3 of Piece 2.
• musical section 4 of the generative work 70 there is also a corresponding pre-analysed “loud” texture at musical section 3 of Piece 1.
• the system recognises that adaption is required both to fill the unspecified space 80 between musical sections 1 and 3 and to morph the texture in the generative work from reflecting “exciting” to reflecting “loud”.
• Musical section 5 has no stipulated texture and so either represents a termination point for the generative composition 70 or a chance to repeat musical section 4 in totality or with a variation in, for example, an accompaniment.
• These are design parameters executable by the system intelligence based on heuristical instruction. Dealing with the fill, there are four alternative processes by which fill can be accomplished by one or an appropriate and logical combination of:
• a preferred embodiment includes a GUI that includes dial-down values for one or more user-selectable textural classifiers.
• the user/programmer is thus able to set relative intensity levels between the multiplicity of textural classifiers, with the system intelligence configured to apply comparative analysis to identify suitable candidates for direct in- fill or adaptation.
• the musical section 3 must include the prior analysed textual classification for “exciting” in Piece 2, there is no choice other than to maintain this exact textural structure because the textural classification fits.
• the first issue relates to the unspecified intermediate hope at musical section 2. It is generally desirable to maintain features from a previous section, and it is also relevant to assess the level of intensity in the texture presented for “rough and warm”; this looks relatively high given the nature of the distribution of the instrument components across all textural classification and also because the resulting texture of rough and warm includes three features.
• the feed-through of the feature from the drums through each of the successive musical sections yields a degree of textural continuity.
• the system intelligence looks to maintain as many contributing instrumental components whilst having regard to the intensity changes and avoiding conflict between features that would class in the same textural classification.
• the processing system and logic treats features within a musical section with a simple single rule. Any instrument component that realises a feature within a single textural classifier will directly conflict with another feature in the same textural classifier and so that musical situation must be avoided to preserve overall textural space.
• a textural classifier may have as many accompaniments as it wishes.
• the system intelligence of the preferred embodiment takes a stance that form is generated through the flow and pace of chords; however, it is possible to change the connotation of a chord, or string of chords, through melodic passing notes, and harmonic substitutions - both of which may be meta-tagged as textural components.
• melodies are typically all classed as features, although some sparse melodic components can be considered accompaniment melodies: that is, they do not counter a given melody, and are not consuming the textural space that a featured melody would.
• the category of the heuristics would be both tagged as melody and bass, and as a feature. This way, there will not be a conflict of texture in the bass region, but certain accompaniment bass components could still be inserted into the texture.
• a textural component classified as a melody that is also tagged as a feature may well bring certain alterations to the scale or mode of the given texture.
• there is a main melodic feature throughout the film that quite often prevalent in the celli, and revolves around a falling melodic minor scale with a flattened 2nd.
• This melodic component would not sit well with any other melodic component that is using a natural 2nd, therefore it would alter the given mode for the texture and any accompanying melody. No other melodic feature would be able to override this because only one featured melodic component can be present at any given time.
• This category of textural element may be linked to a melody, or simply be a melodic element that sits around the temporal space where a melody might sit. This applies typically to guitar riffs, melodic bridging features in orchestral textures, and melodic components that emphasis mode and tonality, but do not present a strong melodic pattern.
• a counter-melody can play with many others, so they are marked as accompaniment. However, if a specific counter-melody is designed to work in conjunction with a melody, then this can be marked as a feature to make sure no other such textural elements that are interacting with a melody get in the way.
• a component that is tagged as a feature for harmony states that it does something with a chord (as known in jazz), or a chord that features multiple extensions, like a #11 chord.
• melodic components components marked as harmonic features are marked as such because they would be deemed to interfere with each other. The issue of how to cope with potentially clashing requests for a melody component that wishes to alter the given scale, and harmonic components that change notes within the given chord is discussed later.
• a bass feature occupies the textural space in the bass range, with this typical of an electric or synth bass line. Bass components that are not features but which are marked as accompaniment will simply occupy the bass note of the chord.
• This textural component is reserved for instruments such as shakers, timbale, HiHat patterns, etc.
• Examples of a feature in this space would be the type of power-drum patterns one hears in many modern film scores, such as at 1 : 17 in Rogue One (Edwards, 2016) and throughout the cue Principal Pyre (Crowley & Greengrass, 2004), or any other type of prominent non-pitched feature.
• These rolling dynamic power-drum motifs would suffer texturally if they were interrupted by other such non-tuned features.
• Non-featured drum patterns are auxiliary components such as military drum patterns, patterns that in themselves have connotative properties, but which do not interfere with the main thrust of the groove.
• the approach advocated by the invention renders the timeline as invariant.
• Film is mapped out across time in seconds and frames.
• embodiments within relevant aspects of the invention are arranged to alter the tempo to create more or fewer bars on the musical ruler.
• the functionality of the system intelligence evaluates, having regard to the supplied narrative, how much musical material will fit into a given requirement and then generates a best fit solution for the generative composition.
• the timeline can have multiple tempo changes to allow for different paces throughout a cue, and to enable the timing of arrival at hit points.
• FIG. 5 gives the outline for the different hierarchical layers 100 within the Heresy system embodying a multiplicity of complementary but independent inventive aspects. These layers flow from top to bottom.
• briefing elements 102-106 are requested from the user. Secondly, these elements 102-106 are interlaced with generated elements 108 to create a complete set of requirements that fill the timeline of the piece of music that is about to be generated. From here, the heuristics of the system, as interpreted and applied by system intelligence, will generate the chord schemes 110 on which the textures will operate and be strung together.
• Form Atoms are a meta-chord scheme and thus the principles by and starting point from which a coherent chord scheme is written/generated and, ultimately, a composition is created.
• Each is a snippet of music (i.e., a musical section) of varying duration that has a length dependent upon the nature of the analysed musical expression and, as such, each represents a building block within the generative system of the preferred embodiments.
• Each Form Atom is derived from interpretational analysis - either manual or computer-based using WHAT - from a library of existing independent compositions, and is stored as an indexed emotionally-described record that is accessible for future compositional use.
• Form Atoms are thus meta-chord syntactical descriptors. Each one has a small stored snippet of chords from a previously analysed work, and a generative set of heuristics that, when run, can produce variations of snippets with similar connotative properties as the stored one.
• the Form Atoms such as reference numerals 120-124, include a generative set of heuristics that, when run, produce variations of the stored chord snippet (extracted from the earlier analysed work) to create chord schemes 128 that have a well organised form, narrative direction and purpose.
• the Form Atoms are chosen and strung together through a bespoke syntax mechanism. These sequential chord schemes are then used to give a texture generator 130 the harmonic palette on which to orchestrate music.
• the final output of the Heresy generative composition system is music 132 created from the heuristics within the texture generator.
• Each Form Atom has a specific syntax internally and to each other but is self-contained in its nature, and each Form Atom embodies or possesses the following signal properties, generative characteristic or attributes:
• (b) A progression descriptor establishing the nature of cadential or sequential progression between adjacent Form Atoms, i.e., the passage of the Form Atom scheme across time; 3.
• a generative set of heuristics/rules that support generation of a set of chords in a chord scheme or many different sets of chords in the same or different tonics that achieve the same form functions and which thus have the similar associated emotional/musical connotations, and heuristics that space out temporally any number of generated chords for any given length of musical time to fill the briefing space;
• These descriptive associations or “placeholders” can be taken from a library so as to present consistency with terminology used in any narrative brief, although this is not a requirement provided association between different descriptors used in different parts of the system of the invention can be resolved as equivalent, similar or neither in semantic space; and
• Metatags such as composer name, instrumentation and/or genre as examples amongst other more specific detail, including (for example) the name of a suite of specific preludes or a series of films. This allows for easier referencing to find styles in a generative phase of composition when briefing considerations are identified. This list allows for further Form Atom refinement from the briefing mechanism.
• a Form Atom cannot contain a tonic in the middle of itself.
• Form Atoms provide harmonic structure and the ability to generate harmonic structures that obey compositionally good form, and they store a list of textural components in a classified state which define texture and which permit maintenance of textural continuity in the generative composition.
• the system functions to generate and store lists of Form Atoms that are linked to lists of preceding or following Form Atoms through Markov-chain associations that identify, from a corpus of artefacts, prior transitions that have worked musically with good form.
• a question is a chord scheme that suggests tension requiring mental settlement as indicated by notes that have appeared within a harmony or melody and which are questionably present because they are outside of the key centre of the local tonic of the Form Atom. Multiple successive questions can be asked musically.
• An answer is the resolution of the question which operates to resolve the presence of the questionable tones (i.e., pitch) or notes (i.e., pitch with duration) from the mind’s perspective by reinforcing the key centre of either the local tonic or any new tonic of the answering Form Atom.
• An example of this are the opening two phrases of “The Love Theme” from Superman by John Williams.
• chords within a chord scheme relate to a local tonic, e.g., C or C m for the major and minor scales of C. Moreover, the sequence of chords is less valuable than an understanding of relationships between chords.
• chord TTminor chord V for Dm and G
• the predicates also must include (as a minimum besides an indication of question, answer or statement treated logically by an exclusive OR function, XOR) either one of four cadential progressions (where the sequence/displacement of chords is not mathematically expressible) or two sequence progressions.
• Cadential progressions take one of four alternative forms and express ways to change the tonic.
• Cadential progress thus can be logically XORed during processing to identify one of:
• S t which relates to the scale of the local tonic and a sequence of chords which have mathematically expressible relationships that can be repeated forever and which is based on tonality of the local tonic.
• Cadential progressions therefore string together as a series of chords with relation to the key centre of the Form Atom’ s tonic.
• the options for which chords can be chosen from each other is extracted from all stored analysis of previous pieces. This is essentially a range of choices found using a Markov chain, but with relation to a given key centre. A simple example of this might be that in the key of C we observe that Dmin or F may come before G7, therefore, we can choose either of them as preceding chords to G7 if the tonic is C. We can then perform a similar action to precede this chosen chord of Dmin or F.
• Sequence progressions can be based on the tonality of the Form Atom’s tonic, such as the second section of Bach’s C Minor Prelude, bars 5 to 14 (see Section D), or may ignore the tonic altogether and simply proceed in a given interval sequence such as a cycle of 5ths or a rising sequence of major triads spaced in minor thirds.
• a consideration for cadential sequences is the ability to change key.
• a key change if the new tonic features at the end of the chain of chords, then we simply state that it is not considered a tonic until the next atom.
• modulations are created by sequences of new tonics.
• the relationships of these tonics are not relative to an external datum; instead, they are categorised through emotional tags, and provide a component of the emotion-briefing mechanism.
• New tonics may appear at any point in a piece of music; within this mechanism, though, they will have at least one Form Atom sequence before they can change. It is possible that this sequence could be one chord only, that of the local tonic, in which case care must be taken in the briefing mechanism to make sure that such changes are not too frequent or else a series of random chords may be inappropriately produced.
• chord scheme is related to the tonic, or ii) it is a regular sequence of chords which ignore it. In both circumstances, the sequence needs to be broken at some point. This is accomplished by an escape chord. Escape chords are related to the chords that immediately precede them irrespective of the local tonic. They are used to break the sequence and establish a bridge to the next Form Atom. Consequently, escape chords typically produce a change in key centre.
• Form Atoms can be strung together like jigsaw pieces. Any Form Atom that has the same progression descriptor as another, can be interchangeably substituted.
• chord V to either chord I or chord IV is permissible but transition to chord Urn is not because (a) there is no established path in the corpus, and (b) there is [implicitly] no common descriptor between the emotional connotations of chords V and Urn.
• FIG. 6 there is in fact no established/recognised relationships to chord Urn (when appreciating that FIG. 6 is a highly simplified view).
• the Form Atom transition from chord IV as a destination is shown in FIG. 6 to be from chords Him and V and its onward permissible transitions to either chord I or chord V. All these translations have been extracted by critical analysis of the historical corpus of music by automated use of music information retrieval (MIR) techniques or otherwise manually coding by a musicologist.
• MIR music information retrieval
• any Form Atom with the same descriptor as y can follow x. This can work in any direction temporally, so we can also precede Form Atoms using the same technique.
• the weightings of any Form Atom being used are based on how many occurrences we find in the corpus; this provides a probability selecting and using a specific Form Atom within a new composition.
• Modulation is necessary to provide a contrast between two key centres and provide structure across time. This allows for the application of heuristics that align with the brief to move the generative composition along its tonal journey.
• a modulator M or that is present within a Form Atom confirms that there will be a definite transition to a new key centre at the end of the Form Atom. If the Form Atom is a modulated, M ed , Form Atom, then historical analysis has identified that, at the instantiation of the modulate Form Atom, there has been a change in key.
• a modulated Form Atom therefore emphasises the emotionally significant perceptible changes in surrounding and context, such as when there is a change in pace or when a narrative of a film scene must change.
• a modulator M or and modulated M ed Form Atom are therefore exclusive, i.e., an ORed logical function.
• Form Atom it is possible for any given Form Atom to have multiple form tags at the same time, except for those of question, answer and statement, whereby the atom can only have one of these at once.
• Each predicate list will be populated with Form Atoms that, from above, include contextual descriptors linked to their respective content that define a real-life emotional experience, feeling or emotional connotation that can be tied to both a briefing narrative input into the system intelligence (e.g., through a user interface) and, further, to semantic descriptor(s) linked with each texture.
• Form Atoms that, from above, include contextual descriptors linked to their respective content that define a real-life emotional experience, feeling or emotional connotation that can be tied to both a briefing narrative input into the system intelligence (e.g., through a user interface) and, further, to semantic descriptor(s) linked with each texture.
• FIG. 7 provides an overview of the mechanism for generative composition achieved by the various aspects and combinations of embodiments, with the extent and depth of any combination merely varying the level of sophistication, implementation complexity and/or attainment of the generative signal that is eventually output. More particularly, FIG. 7 is a schematic overview of how heuristics are logically organised and processed. Independent of the tasks that the heuristics perform in accordance with the concepts of the present invention, FIG. 7 shows the affordances necessary for a heuristic mechanism that organises them; let us consider these in turn:
• the generative compositional system of the present invention is, predominantly, a software implemented system that is based on a bespoke expert system running code.
• the system as will be understood, therefore includes one or more processors.
• This system intelligence will call on code stored in memory, and will retrieve, manipulate and return data to and from storage, such as a database or other memory storage.
• the database may be local to the expert system, but equally it may be remotely located and accessible via a wide area or local area network and appropriate network connection.
• the user interface may be a computer or other client device that provides an ability to upload, download and/or stream data and media content to any logically appropriate part of the system for reason of storage (in one or more databases), manipulation and/or output (whether streamed or downloaded or imprinted) as a playable media product, including but not limited to a bespoke user-centric and/or user-selected soundtrack for an interactive game.
• the underlying system architecture is well-known, although the approach to processing and generative composition efficiency yields manipulated audio signal data (whether aligned with a film brief of for its own sake and purpose) that has improved characteristics and qualities.
• the system provides a significant advance in the field of audio signal processing in the context of, particularly, audio composition.
• compositional output is derived from this briefing mechanism from which two requirements for the generative mechanism can be extracted (by, for example, NLP or more structured responses to specific question posed in relation to a selectively definable timeline).
• the two requirements are:
• FIG. 8 shows the three major method steps (and internal processing, including data management and data processing) to create a composition from a given brief. The steps are:
• the system performs analysis on the musical corpus (or at least a portion of it) stored in a database 110. This results in historically stored music being broken down into Form Atoms and each classified in terms of both the aforedescribed predicates (or a subset thereof) and emotional descriptors that linked to each Form Atom to reflect associated emotional connotation of that Form Atom.
• the Form Atoms can have ancillary metadata, such as genre information and composer (to name two exemplary categories).
• the analysis and classification/categorization may be manual and conducted by a musicologist making informed parsing of the music to identify, e.g., beginning and end points of each Form Atom as well as other properties and characteristics of the Form Atom (as discussed herein in terms of predicates), or otherwise the classification and assessment may be entirely or partially based on use of a trained AI/neural network that can import content meaning to extracted file properties representative of the predicates.
• AI systems are described, for example, in US 2020-0320398 “Method of Training a Neural Network to Reflect Emotional Perception and Related System and Method for Categorizing and Finding Associated Content” and other such patents in related AI technology.
• the flow process that is within FIG. 8 indicates that the user brief 114 may also influence the pieces file.
• the pieces file could simply be the entire database, although it would be a subset that reflects requirements for a particular genre of work, e.g., jazz, or a particular composer, e.g., Bach, and artist, e.g., Pink Floyd, to be used in the generation of the pieces file. This simply reduces the complexity in generating following and preceding chord trees or Form Atom trees.
• the Markov chains are associated with the requirements of the brief, e.g., a need for raunchy heavy rock for a scene in a bar that has a stipulated start and stop time, so that relationships between relevant Form Atoms align with the brief and provide compositional options for transitions along the composition path.
• the system intelligence selects 116 an opening Form Atom 118 from Form Atoms 117 in the pieces file (or more extensive database), which Form Atom corresponds to the system- interpreted requirements of the brief.
• Form Atom corresponds to the system- interpreted requirements of the brief.
• the creation of a Form Atom string is actioned 118, which string may include blank periods that must be auto-filled to provide an end-to-end composition that does not contain breaks in audio. The process then moves onto chord scheme generation 104.
• this general requirement for such a tool is its ability to map pace across time, i.e., a musical time ruler.
• it should be adaptable through tempo and time signature changes and sufficiently receptive to allow identification of:
• Compositional pace chords over time, modulations, tonality shifts,
• Brief filling is a constraint satisfaction mechanism and may be achieved by a generic algorithm or on a more laboursome basis involving consideration and recommendation.
• the process of insertion of fill arises because the briefing mechanism allows for a Form Atom to be specified at any point on the timeline through the use of a Form Atoms requirements list. This list will more than likely contain a series of Form Atoms that do not necessarily tessellate, leaving gaps in between them.
• the constraint-satisfaction mechanism operates to fill in the gaps in the list, which is preferably exercised through heuristics. This gives a localised treatment of the most popular parameters requested for Form Atoms. The system then fills in the gaps with atoms that have these parameters. The requirement for this system-centric correction or interpretation is therefore dependent on the extensivity of the supplied brief. In- filling of gaps will typically consider and account or compensate for:
• chord density per bar within a given tempo section and particularly such that chord density is set in each atom to reflect a number closest to the average number of chords per bar within the given tempo section.
• a chain of chord schemes contains all the information necessary for a harmonic map of the composition, including position timing between chords. From this information, it is possible to create the relevant notes at any given point in time, and apply them to textural elements such as harmonic and melodic parts.
• the tonic is selected 120, with this providing a primary /priority tone and available chords (with tonic pitch and tonality 1220 expressed in terms of note displacements between I and VII (and which includes minor offsets from the full notes of the degree of the scale).
• a chord scheme is then created 124 and a chord scheme train 126 stored.
• texture generation is applied 130 following extraction 132 of relevant textural group files having regard to the brief and descriptor correspondence or similarity between the emotional connotations of the Form Atoms in the assembled chord scheme chains. Writing 134 of the textures chord scheme thus leads to generation of a composition which can be sent 138 to a sequencer for either audio broadcast or storage, as the case may be.
• harmonic context is the driving force for the choices that are made compositionally. From this, the acceptability of any given chord followed by another chord is dependent on the harmonic context created by neighbouring chords and their relationship with a common tonic, with this manifesting itself in the mind’s recognition and physical gratification. Hierarchically, whilst chords are dependent on their neighbours, adjacent sequences of chords also need to be self-contained entities that are related to each other.
• sequences can be substituted for alternative ones depending on their common harmonic properties, such as: do they end with a recognisable cadence to the tonic, do they feature a tonic at the beginning, or maybe at the end?
• recapitulating specific chord schemes verbatim is avoided through the creation of heuristics that can produce not only the chords for any given analysed sequence, but have the logic to produce different varieties of chord sequences of similar or differing lengths in their place - and whilst any rules of how the sequences connect through certain specific chords may restrict the system’s chord choices, it will ensure sound compositional flow across the sequences.
• Sequences are delineated and categorised through rules with respect to the occurrence of their tonic. Perceptually, they appear to be of similar length to a musical phrase, although this may not be the case. These small sequences are the aforedescribed Form Atoms. They are the smallest possible building block that can act as an independent sequence whilst still making musical sense to the listener. Form Atoms have certain properties, and Form Atoms with similar properties can be substituted for each other. An aspect of the invention thus defines the properties and constituent parts of a Form Atom, as well as the mechanism by which Form Atoms may be combined.
• chord scheme As a self-contained unit, or breaking it into two Form Atoms that are a question and answer. If the chord scheme is kept intact, then the information that is gleaned is as follows.
• An Eb chord can be followed by an F/Eb chord
• An F/Eb chord can be followed by an Ab/Eb chord
• An Ab/Eb chord can be followed by an Eb chord
• chord scheme can be substituted for any other chord scheme that starts and ends on the local tonic.
• this chord scheme is a question and answer and that means it is possible and practicable to assimilate all of the chord information in points one through three above.
• a question phrase that has the tonic at the beginning but not the end can be joined to an answer phrase that has the tonic at the end.
• This gives us the ability to break this chord sequence into smaller substitutable pieces, and to change these pieces to introduce interest.
• this granularity would allow for a construction of a series of Form Atoms that present ⁇ a, b, a, c ⁇ . This is indeed what the original piece does. If we extend the example to see the next two Form Atoms, the question is repeated in the original score, but the answer is different to create new interest:
• this initial four bar phrase could be expressed as a chord scheme that is cadential with the tonic at the beginning and end, but this would miss out on a series of opportunities for generation.
• We tag the first Form Atom with a form function question tag, and the second with an answer tag. This classification process is significant for generative composition since it opens up greater opportunities for variation in compositional structure that satisfies good form.
• a preferred embodiment stores two pieces of chord information, namely the chord type and the chord’s bass.
• An example would be Fm7/Bb.
• Their specific timing is irrelevant, because there may be more or fewer chords generated by the atom’s heuristics depending on the briefing requirement.
• chord-generation heuristics because it is important to know what the heuristics were based on.
• a Chord Scheme Generator can obtain a set of chord trees of which chords precede or follow each other.
• heuristics There are two sets of heuristics that are used by the Form Atom. Firstly, there is a set to generate a requested number of chords. Secondly, there is a set to space out any given number of chords across any given time-frame. In the case of the first set, this is where one may find heuristics, for example, that would generate a cycle of 5ths, or a sequence of rising triads a minor third apart.
• Form Atom trees are formed in terms of both forward and backwards paths to address varying levels of input detail provided in the briefing narrative.
• One tree contains options for Form Atoms that can follow the one we are generating from, whereas the other contains options for Form Atoms that can precede it. Both will typically have multiple branches and both reflect identified musical progression in terms, for example, of whether a sequence of cadences makes sense. This is a qualitative determination based on a quantitative assessment.
• Form Atoms with identical meta-tags for form functions and progression descriptors are placed into the same list.
• Each preceding and following atom from this one goes into the respective options list for forwards and backwards for that list.
• a Form Atom is generated, a choice from these lists creates a neighbouring atom. This allows generation of a meta- structure for the chord scheme of the composition that will make coherent musical sense.
• FIG. 9 shows how a single composition is parsed into a set of trees, and the preceding and following options that can be selected for any given atom generated from the lists. End and start form functions do not affect the Form Atoms’ listing, but all other categories are considered. Given six different progression descriptors, and three different sets of form functions, this gives an exemplary number of 216 possible lists to reflect every combination.
• chord schemes is a grouping/concatenation of chords that are formed from Form Atoms having musical properties based on Predicates, as described herein.
• chord scheme consists of the following properties:
• a tonic this is the tonic for the chord scheme’s local context. It is set from the previous chord scheme’s new tonic property, or in the event of this being the first chord scheme, the piece’s tonic.
• chords this is a list of chords which are expressed through the following properties:
• Chord type this gives a type of chord. Types are used later when creating sets of pitches from which to choose notes. Types are defined by the analyst for the purposes of their own musical generation heuristics. Examples might include maj, mini, doml b9, myWeirdChordTypel , myWeirdChordType2.
• each chord has a local relative position within the chord scheme that is measured from the beginning of the chord scheme which itself is treated as an epoch. Rather than an absolute position (which would measure the chord’s position from the beginning of the piece), this allows the chord scheme to be moved back and forth in time by the user if requirements are moved or reordered.
• chord scheme Having outlined the type on information that a chord scheme contains, the generation of any given chord scheme for the new composition, given a set of briefing requirements and associated Form Atoms, is a combination of the following factors:
• Tonality and key - these are affected by the overall emotional requirements stipulated in the brief.
• Chord density this is the number of chords within the chord scheme.
• Form Atom this is the Form Atom associated with the requirement from the requirements list.
• This Form Atom contains the heuristic information we need to generate the chord scheme, and is selected based on the requirement’s emotional connotations, form requirements, and meta-tags.
• an initial key centre for the composition is firstly chosen. This is referred to as the tonic, but it is only relevant to the initial Form Atom.
• the composition piece is free to deviate from this key centre depending on which Form Atoms have been selected to reflect the briefing requirements.
• the system processes respective chord-generation heuristics, followed by their chord spacing heuristics.
• the chord-generation heuristics produce the number of chords that the requirement has in its associated property.
• the chain of chords are then spaced by heuristics depending on how many chords there are, and the effect that the Form Atom wants to produce from its chord spacing.
• a key and tonality for the composition is selected as a start point. This is done just before the chord scheme generation.
• the tonic note may be randomised by the generative system.
• the major/minor tonality of the piece is determined on the basis of an overall assessment of emotional connotation requests in the brief, cross-referenced with analysed pieces that most feature these emotional connotations. Therefore, the analysed compositions that include/feature the most relevant connotations influence the tonality the greatest.
• Heuristics performed by the system are generated by analysis, such as by a musicologist although technical approaches are also alternative or complementary, e.g., the use of a genetic algorithm to evolve fewer more accurate heuristics based on fitness functions that test both Occam’s Razor (that fewer are axiomatically better) and accuracy in that the heuristics can explain more of the original artefact’s note pitches, lengths and positions.
• These heuristics look for pattern recognition and unusualness in audio components and musical structures to generate a rule that has the fewest number of rules that are able, from a given chord, to generate at least one later chord or a succession of later chords to reproduce the original analysed chord scheme in the original musical artefact.
• the heuristic is a mathematical explanation. This is the basis on which, given a Form Atom database as a starting point and then a set of textures having aligned emotional connotation which are similar and preferably align with those linked to Form Atoms, composition can be achieved.
• any musical score can be explained by pitch, position and duration for the notes.
• Other dimensional properties are also generally relevant, e.g., “volume” that relates to the loudness or softness of the performance style which can itself take a number of forms, such as staccato, etc. Every musical score can therefore be described or represented using something akin to the MIDI protocol, i.e., a series of on-off switches over time. Indeed, in providing context for an implementing embodiment, in real terms each 8-bit MIDI envelope is tied to a pulse, and running through a multiplicity of such pulses sequentially generates the performance of the musical score.
• a series of mathematical functions realised in a Turing equivalent musical programming language can, when combined, ordered and programmed with correct parameters, generate the original score from which these functions were derived. Moreover, the same functions can generate alternatives and acceptable but different scores.
• the rule may need to explain how to generate a note in the bass from a chord in a specific bar in the treble, and then for there to be selected parameters to be identified that, when applied to the rule, achieve realisation with the original analysed musical notes in the original score.
• this rule can now be used in other contexts to generate acceptable bass notes even if given different chords.
• This particular rule may be assigned a suitably descriptive name, e.g., “very basic bass generation for triad in major key” for identification and re-use purposes.
• the requirement may be, for example, looking at a chord in the treble, we want the bass to be the same pitch but in a lower octave (closest to the bottom possible pitch of a bass guitar).
• the linguistic explanation for the correct mathematical function may be “in selecting the next bass note, look at all notes in the chord of interest and choose the closest one of those notes (in terms of MIDI separation) to the bass note in the previous bar.
• the correct parameters may relate to the MIDI note separation distances in the original chord in the treble as expressed in terms of the degree, e.g. I, III, IV.
• processing and model mechanisms allow for the ordered processing of heuristics, as well as the nesting of heuristics into groups that can be copied and moved within the processing flow. It also offers the ability to branch both conditionally and unconditionally, as well as to set the probability that certain heuristics or branches of heuristics may be processed. This is all achieved using the principle of hypernodes.
• Primitive heuristics give an analyst the ability to input analysis without having to write code, and are functionally configured to allow for the creation of rhythms, pitches, chords and chord spacing for use or analysis as a consequence of them having predefined mathematical functions in a Turing equivalent musical programming language.
• a hypernode is a building block that allows for hierarchical processing and storing of heuristics. It has the following properties:
• a probability - this is a number that represents the chance of the hypemode being processed.
• a set of heuristics starts off with one single hypemode.
• This node in turn contains a list of hypernodes that can have musical elements attached.
• a musical element contains a specific heuristic, and any other data that needs to be stored with it.
• Every hypemode has a logical operator attached to it, either an XOR or an AND. If it is an AND, then each hypemode in the list is processed in the list order; if the probability of the hypemode is less than 1 , then a random number generator is used to assess whether the item will be processed or skipped. In the event of an XOR list, then only one hypernode is selected from the list to be processed, its likelihood depending on the relative probabilities of each item in the list.
• the type of musical element attached to the hypernode will affect how the hypernode is processed. There are different iterative steps that the processor will take depending on this information. These are the types of musical elements that exist within the generative musical composition system of the present invention:
• Drum - this is a rhythm-generating heuristic, not necessarily associated with drums but with all rhythm in general.
• Form Atom this contains information about chords from repertoire that has been analysed and input into the system. Form Atoms are used to create a meta-map of the chord schemes of a piece, as described in detail above.
• Pitch - this is a specific type of heuristic that is associated with creating pitch information based on a given chord scheme.
• Texture adapter - a texture adapter is specifically associated with a texture group. Texture adapters tie pitch, rhythm, and MIDI routing information together.
• Texture group - a texture group ties texture adapters to meta-tags that can be used by the user.
• a heuristic has only three elements that are stored within it: a name, a description (so that the analyst can see what the heuristic does), and a procedure, or method, that is run when the heuristic is invoked/instantiated. This means that heuristics do not contain any pre programmed data. If a heuristic needs data to be stored with it, then this is held in the musical element that contains the heuristic. However, a heuristic does not rely on data being created for it. This is because all other data is dynamically created and cannot be relied on to be available at the point of processing. This may be due to branching, or statistical chance from probabilities not generating material as expected. Therefore, a series of data maps are associated with different heuristics. These contain any dynamically generated data that any given heuristic may rely on to ran its primary function.
• the heuristic maps have the following properties:
• composition the composition itself, which includes information on:
• a spare Heresy map to provide the heuristic with an ability to send information forwards in time to other heuristics, or to itself when it is processed again.
• a processed drum list this is a list of drams that have been processed. Some of these may affect the notes that are processed for the heuristic in question.
• a number representing the current Form Atom that is being processed this allows for surrounding atoms to be considered for things like their local tonic, and chord schemes.
• Pitch transformers - these heuristics change the pitch of notes and chords, i.e., provide an offset which is an integer in a MIDI scale but not in frequency scale where each tonic in successive octaves is frequency doubled.
• Pitch storers - these heuristics create storage areas in memory for notes and Flags.
• Logical Operators allow for conditional flow control through “If Then Else” type mechanisms, as well as checking whether certain conditions are true, such as note pitches, flags, and chord types being of a certain value. They can also check if note pitches are within a certain range. Essentially, these are branching functions for sub routines.
• Pitch-generating heuristics can gather pitch information from three different sources: from a number that is abstractly stated by the analyst; from a specific inversion position in a chord from the chord scheme; or from an idea staff.
• An idea staff is a named list of pitch locations, and is set up by the analyst in a separate heuristic list in the hypernode structure. Whilst pitch information can be gathered from any of the three mentioned sources, all generated pitch information is stored in idea staff pitch locations.
• the note number would select a value in the chord from the bass, e.g., in a major chord “1” would give the major third and “2” would give the perfect fifth, “3” may give a major 7th or wrap back around to give the tonic an octave higher, depending on the chord that is generated at the time.
• the integer gives a literal value for whatever number is specified.
• the alternative pitch-generation primitive heuristic is called a Voice Leader.
• a reference pitch is selected from which to voice lead.
• This note to lead gives a reference to a note from one of the predefined three sources (idea staff, chord, number).
• the note to be created is then chosen from a second reference source, typically a chord or ideas staff.
• the analyst can then specify if they want the note to lead upwards, downwards, or in both directions from the first reference note. If they choose both, then the closest note will be found. It is possible to specify that the note should be forced to change pitch in the event of the note appearing in the second reference chord; this is an example of another rule (of many).
• Branching and logical operations are achieved by a set of logical operator heuristics.
• the IJThenElse heuristic presents a set of three hypernodes.
• the first “if” hypernode checks for a given condition via equality heuristics. There are four different equality heuristics. They can check if a specific note is of a certain pitch, or if a note is within a range of pitches, or whether a chord is of a certain type, or if a flag is in existence and turned on or off. If the condition is met, the “then” hypernode is used; if not, the “else” hypernode is used.
• the last set of primitive generative heuristics are transformers. There are three specific ones. The first two are note and chord transposers. These are capable of transposing a note or an entire chord in pitch by a source value from one of the mentioned three sources: an abstract number, an inversion position, or from an idea staff. The third one is an alternative retrospective voice leader. It will take a note in a given position with a given pitch, and it will move it up or down by octaves until it is within an octave of a destination reference note. This is an effective way of removing compound intervals in created pitch material.
• Primitive Rhythm Heuristic - Drum Although there are potentially many alternative mechanisms for generating the rhythmic qualities of melodies and textures from pitch information, a preferred embodiment uses a single primitive rhythm heuristic. This heuristic applies a rhythmic triggering mechanism for the pitch values found in idea staffs created using the pitch heuristics mentioned in the previous section.
• drums The properties of the heuristic are stored in what is referred to as a drum.
• the drum information is stored in the musical element alongside this primitive rhythm processing heuristic.
• These musical elements with attached drum data sit in hypernode structures just like other musical elements, meaning that they are processed in a hierarchical order. This means that drums can potentially influence each other as to how they are triggered through their generated and observed output. Whilst drums are indeed used to make drum patterns, their ability to trigger the pitch notes of idea staffs means they have a much more powerful use than that of just creating untuned percussion patterns.
• the drum has a name for future reference within the context of the processing mechanism. This drum’s name will be referred to by other drums in the same hypemode structure to affect their trigger probabilities.
• Each probability can have a value that can be set between 0% and 100%; velocities have a MIDI range between 1 and 127. If a note triggers, then the associated velocity is used.
• the velocities can be randomised around this value by a set range.
• the probability in specific grid positions can be influenced by other drums that have been processed already and triggered. In this case, there are settable velocities for a note should it eventually get triggered.
• These preprocessed drums may appear in one of two lists. Firstly, there is a not list of drums that negatively affects grid probabilities. If triggered at a given position, these preprocessed drums mean the current drum should not trigger, even if the probability is 100%. This is useful in circumstances such as the unidiomatic triggering of a closed Hi-Hat and an open Hi-Hat at the same time. In this example, an analyst may set the closed Hi-Hat to play on all quaver beats, unless an open Hi-Hat has been triggered.
• the open Hi-Hat would be processed first in the hypernode structure, and the closed Hi-Hat would be processed afterwards with the open Hi-Hat in its not list.
• an analyst may wish to increase the chance of a ghost note occurring on a surrounding 2nd or 4th semiquaver if a kick dram or snare drum is triggered on a neighbouring quaver.
• the kick drum and snare dram may contribute 30% each to the probability of a ghost happening, thus substantially increasing the likelihood of a trigger.
• Drums have a pitch value.
• This pitch value can equate to a literal MIDI pitch, or a store position in an idea staff.
• different rhythm adapters are used at a later stage when the rhythm and pitch heuristics are plugged into each other (such as needed to provided texture).
• the drum can be forced to produce a set number of notes, or a range of notes, thus meaning that statistical flukes that result in sparse, or too busy, rhythmic patterns can be avoided. If the drum is only being used as a method to attract or silence other drams through the attractor and not lists, then it can be set to mute. This means that it will not have an output pitch of its own, but it will still be used in the processing mechanism.
• the length of time that the given probability grid spans is set by a loop-length parameter. This way, a grid of 16 spread over four beats is effectively semiquavers but spread over eight beats is quavers. It is also possible to say how many times the pattern will occur, or loop around, and whether the pattern happens at the beginning or end of a Form Atom, or the beginning or end of a chord change within the Form Atom. This gives a powerful way to create intricate textures as chords and Form Atoms change. Finally, the triggered pitch notes are given a length in bars, beats, and fractions of a beat via associated length properties.
• FIG. 10 provides an overview of the processing involved to combine all this information and techniques to understand how textures are specified, constructed, requested by the user, and realised by the system.
• the analyst starts by creating a set of heuristics that will create pitches that are placed into idea staffs. These heuristics are programmed into a hypernode structure that is stored in a core file.
• kit files are processed in what is known as a kit processor. This uses a specific heuristic that allows for a kit file, and associated kit from within that file, to be processed. This kit-processing heuristic sits in a processor file.
• a map is created of where the eventual note information will go, both in terms of the generative system’s internal structure and storage, as well as external MIDI mappings for attached VST instruments.
• the system Before applying texture, the system has only created abstract snippets of musical material, principally in the form of Form Atoms with related processing to provide chord scheme chains. Texture overlay is where orchestration takes place for a specific range, instrument, and placement onto staffs at a specific point in the score. It is feasible that the orchestrator may wish to use various triggered notes many times, for different instruments (in musical terms, what we know as “doubling”). This is specified in an orchestrator file, which contains hypemodes that tie together rhythm processors, with external MIDI mappings, and internal staffs for storage of MIDI information.
• the staffs that are created have name properties; a length in bars, beats, and fractions of a beat; a time signature that is appropriate for the material that will be written for it; and an offset measured in bars, beats and fractions of a beat.
• the offset is applied to the absolute position of any material. This way we can move pickups at the beginning of phrases, and drum fills at the end, across the adjoining bar lines in order to make positive and negative anacruses.
• a rhythm-adaptor heuristic is required to map rhythmically generated material from a processor file, to staffs, and a MIDI channel, a core note, and an idea staff.
• the rhythm processor called “pianos”, with hypernode processor called “my Bach piano right hand”, will be providing triggers for notes that will request a pitch value from idea staff “treble” at storage position “3”. It will take all pitches generated from the idea staff and create MIDI notes for them on channel “11”, with an internal destination staff for all this MIDI information that is named “Piano (right hand)”. The internal destination staff will provide any information about rhythmic offset. If a pitch position is not specified, then it is assumed that the drum is requesting a literal MIDI pitch. This is how percussion patterns are created. If an ideas staff is not specified, then it is assumed that all the pitches will have the same MIDI and staff routing.
• a texture adaptor is given two components: a specific core pitch hypemode generator from a core file, and a orchestrator hypemode from an orchestrator file. This texture-adaptor heuristic is placed into a hypernode stmcture that is part of a texture group.
• a texture group has a hypemode that contains texture adaptors and meta-data that the analyst wishes to associate with the texture adaptor’s output.
• This data contains the briefing components that a user may specify and includes:
• the system is arranged, in view of a lack of relevant direction in the brief, to continue the current texture meta-tag requests until a new one arises with the arrow of time. This feeds back into the texture requirements list so that the user can delete or change the texture as they see fit in between sections. This means they do not have to repeat texture requirements in between points of changing texture in the brief.
• the generative system of the preferred embodiment cycles through all chord requirements and checks if a texture requirement overlaps with it. If so, it processes the texture requirement whilst using the chord scheme created for the associated Form Atom. If the Form Atom starts early, or extends longer than the texture, this does not matter because the processor is arranged to already have composed material if early, and if late it will compose the remaining material onto the next cycle.
• the generative system of the present invention preferably prioritises requests for featured texture elements (such as harmony, melody, counter-melody, etc.) over accompaniment elements. It creates a list of all required elements that are features, then checks for all available texture groups that meet one of these requirements. This texture group list is then scored depending on how many other meta-tags the texture group can fulfil.
• the texture group may also have metatags regarding connotations attached to it that are also relevant to the brief. Scores are cumulative. To provide a selection process, the system intelligence may score texture elements that are not features but which are requested as +1, elements requested that are features as +2, and groups with appropriate metatags as +4. This takes into account weighting towards texture groups that have satisfied the strictest criterion, namely having a featured element that is requested by the brief. Generally, the system is arranged to choose the highest scored texture group, whereafter there is a temporary removal of the satisfied elements from the brief and repeat of the process to find the next appropriate texture groups. This eventually fulfils all requested elements with and without features, as well as encouraging texture groups with the correct meta-tags for discourse and connotation.
• texture groups we perform two tasks. Firstly, we add the texture groups to a list of requirements that will be checked and prioritised on future texture generation cycles if their scores are matched. This way we use repeated texture ideas throughout the composition where possible, rather than changing texture ideas each and every time a similar requirement is encountered. Secondly, the texture groups that have been selected are processed by the system intelligence.
• Form Overview this process is used to breakdown the piece’s overall chord scheme into constituent Form Atoms.
• Form Atom Analysis this allows categorisation of Form Atoms that have been identified in step one through their properties, as well as to describe any heuristics necessary to create the chord schemes along with their associated chord spacer heuristics.
• Texture Analysis - groupings of musical notes that can be explained by a self-contained set of heuristics are called textures. Texture analysis involves highlighting the entropy and redundancy that appears within the texture (see “section titled Entropy and Redundancy” immediately below), as well as identification and explanation for how to generate what Deliege (2001) calls cues.
• a set of provided primitive heuristics having programmable parameters, generates musical textures based on the output of chord generation and spatial/temporal heuristics which are logically sequenced through the principle of defined Form Atoms.
• Green represents direct repeats of information for which there are devised heuristics.
• Form Atom Analysis Introduction This section shows how to classify Form Atoms into a limited set of progression descriptors depending on their chord scheme’s properties (as described earlier). This process results in interchangeable Form Atoms depending on their properties.
• Phillip Ball defines tonal music as that which has a priority tone (Ball, 2011), with phrases have functionality which gives the listener a temporal map based on the priority tone. The listener tries to predict how the phrases will bring the piece back towards the priority tone, which involves the process of categorisation (Deliege, 2001).
• the generative system described herein provides a piece annotation system. For illustrative purposes, an example implementation of this piece annotation system is shown in FIG. 11.
• Piece Annotation To annotate a piece, it is qualitatively broken down into progressions with associated descriptors. This restricts interpretation to a set of descriptors as outlined earlier.
• Form Atoms are musical elements that sit in a hypernode structure for reasons of processing, including at least one of manipulation and use. This gives the analyst the ability to structure the piece’s input hierarchically, allowing for branches within a piece to be represented next to each other in a logical way. This can be useful for visualising the relationship between Form Atoms that are in different places in the music, such as codas and repeats, and is useful when the system and method of the various embodiments creates such Form Atom trees (as described above).
• chord list associated with each atom from the composition under analysis.
• This string of chords gives an ordered list which can be turned into a branching structure to give options for different chords from, and to, other chords in a cadential sequence.
• Each atom has a tonic pitch and associated tonality, such as major, minor, or one of the modes. This tonic is needed to give context to the chord branches.
• progression descriptors There are three options for progression descriptors: cadential, sequence-intervallic, or sequence-tonal. If cadential, the system intelligence can deduce from the entered chords how to classify the descriptor further based on the tonic’s position being either at the beginning, end, both, or neither. This gives the generative mechanism one component of the jigsaw puzzle necessary to construct future chord schemes.
• Form Atom properties that can have multiple entries: the emotional functions and the form-function lists:
• Each Form Atom now has its generative heuristics attached to it. These heuristics may be from previously written ones that are reused, or fresh ones that describe a new chord scheme generative mechanism. These heuristics consists of the two components, as again already described above. Firstly, a hypemode that contains the pitch and tonality chord sequence generator. Secondly, a chord-spacer algorithm which will space the chords that are generated over a given musical timeframe. In this way, the number of chords that will be generated can remain independent of the timeframe in which they will eventually sit. This is important, because the timeframe itself may be quite changeable when film cues are lengthened and shortened.
• chord-atom heuristics This section describes the standard cadential heuristic and chord-spacing heuristics. These are our foundations for creating chord-atom heuristics, and can quite often be used verbatim.
• Chord-Spacer Heuristics Chord-Spacer Heuristics
• Chord-spacer heuristics spread out the available chords into a given number of bars.
• the foundation heuristic call for any given CSH hypemode system is termed the CSHStandard method. This method spreads out the chords depending on how many chords per bar the given CSH has allocated, balanced by each bar’s priority for accepting a new chord.
• the method needs the given chord sequence, the Form Atom’s time signature, the number of bars, and an array of numbers representing the priority of each bar for having chords placed in it.
• the method finds the highest priority bar and allocates it a chord, thus reducing the bar’s priority number by 1. This process is repeated for the number of available chords.
• chords for each bar is given to this heuristic by other CSHs that are specific to progression descriptors. All bars’ priorities are set to 0 to start.
• This CSH checks the number of chords to see if it is even. If so, it de-prioritises the first and last bar’s priority to -1 each. If this is the same bar, it will take all the chords. If there are two bars, then they will be treated equally. If there are more than two bars, then this prioritisation will decrease the chance of the first and last bars having chords. As the first and last chord are both tonics in this type of chord scheme, this is a way of giving the tonics more musical space to breathe and to assert themselves over the other chords in the chord scheme.
• This heuristic is a copy of CSH Cadential Tonic at Beginning and End, except that if the number of bars is odd, then the prioritisation is not random: the first bar is de-prioritised to -1 and the last bar has its priorities increased to 2.
• CHS placer places the chords on beats based on how many chords appear in the bar. This placing is represented in FIG. 12.
• Sequential Form Atoms can come in two varieties: interval and tonality -based (see above).
• the sequential Form Atom template of FIG. 13 lays out the pitch for the initial chord, how the chord is altered through iterations, and the escape chord and associated relationship and properties.
• This Form Atom functions as a perfect cadence in the key of C minor. Due to its initial tonic (albeit in second inversion) and final dominant G chord, it feels clearly loopable and therefore is classified as a statement.
• the bass movement is worthy of future analysis with regards to how bass movement can be generated in a scalic fashion; however, this movement is not relevant to the immediate study of the chord scheme.
• This phrase contains a tonic minor chord and an Abm which follows it.
• This Ab m seems to pose a musical question which requires a response if the key centre of C minor is to be maintained. If we take this phrase in isolation and ask if it is loopable, it would not be a completely offensive cadence to go from the Abm to C minor; however, the Abm is not in the key centre due to the Cb. This is therefore more appropriate to classify it as a question Form Atom.
• the treatment of this question in the score is to accent these two chords with a harsh accent. This would warrant an emotional connotation tag: “Chase Starts”, or maybe
• chords can be strung together within a cadential section.
• FIG. 15 represents a loop of sequence Form Atom 3, with escape Form Atom 4 in The Quidditch Match. It is based on a dominant 7 h9 chord which rises in semitones. This, by definition, is a question phrase because it requires an escape phrase to answer it, thereby bringing it to a halt. It is worth noting that this chord section could just as easily start on any chord from within a range of approximately -4 to +1 semitones (Eb 7 b9 to Ab 7 h9), and still be effective; however, the repeat of the previous phrase’ s G 7 h9 helps to ground the beginning of the chromatic rise in this build up and give it a starting context. The previous G could of course be generated differently, so we would tend to say that in the heuristic we create, the start of this chord should be a repeat of the last chord in the previous generated chord scheme associated with the previous Form Atom.
• Form Atom 5 (sequential): bars 13 and 14 This contains the escape chord for Form Atom 4, hence this is an answer phrase.
• This escape phrase’s chord is minor and its pitch is +5 semitones from the last sequence chord.
• the 9 #11 13 chord in bar 14 serves as the climactic point of the escape phrase. This is a useful example of how to build a chord function based on embellishment of our current chord.
• Our heuristics are labelled with the emotional connotation “embellishment”, which when asked for will call the chord creation and spacing heuristics that follow.
• this chord sequence is a number of local tonics.
• the first tonic is a plain triad
• the last tonic is a fully suspended chord with a #11th and 13th over the third of the chord in the bass, creating a first inversion. Any tonics in between these two points alter one note to adapt towards the final state.
• the number of tonics is dependent on the number of bars. We use two chords per bar until the last bar where we have the final prescribed chord. If we run out of alterations but still have chord spaces to fill, we change the latter chords in the sequence to occupy one bar rather than half a bar.
• FIG. 16 - Form Atom 6 sequential cadence from The Quidditch Match This takes the chord from the last chord in the previous Form Atom and looks at its tonality, major or minor. If major, the first chord in this new bar is a minor first inversion 1 chord whose root is semitone higher. If minor, then this is a first inversion major chord of the same root. This pattern then repeats until the escape chord is needed.
• the escape chord is related to a minor resolution as +7 semitones, and to the major as +8 semitones.
• the escape chord is in the second inversion and is a major chord.
• a standard chord spacer of cadential no tonic will give the desired spacing.
• This two-chord phrase can be interpreted as a sequence which escapes after its first iteration. It could, however, be elongated to lengthen the time taken throughout the build up. This pattern is represented in FIG. 17 - sequence and escape phrases 7 and 8 from The Quidditch Match.
• Form Atom 8 in bars 23 and 24 (and its repeat as Form Atom 9 in bars 25 and 26), functions as an escape chord to Form Atom 7, and gives us a new tonic of Bb. It is apparent that John Williams uses second inversion chords as escape chords, with the tonality giving a distinctive flavour. This is the beginnings of gathering enough evidence to investigate a more common mechanism for predicting appropriate escape chords based on second inversions and the relationship to the last chord in the sequence, but we would need to see more examples of this in other works to be sure there was a pattern.
• the score in FIG. 18 is a four-bar section of detache string writing with associated colour labels for note pitch. This would be orchestrated across violins 1 and 2, violas, celli, and double basses doubling the celli and sounding an octave below.
• the destination for the pitch data is Strings position 2.
• this heuristic is identical to the heuristic in 2.1, but has a 1-bar offset in its chord to reference, thus choosing a pitch from the chord to follow.
• This heuristic is identical to the heuristic in 3.1, but has a 1-bar offset in its chord to reference, thus choosing a pitch from the following chord.
• This heuristic is identical to the heuristic in 4.1, but has a 1-bar offset in its chord to reference, thus choosing a pitch from the following chord.
• a preemptive heuristic it initialises position 10 of the Strings array with a value copied from 5.
• This heuristic is identical to the heuristic in 5.1, but has a 1-bar offset in its chord to reference, thus choosing a pitch from the following chord.
• rhythmic hypernode in the kit’s file looks like this:
• Grid resolution 8. 100% chance of triggering on the first beat with a velocity of 122.
• Velocity is randomised by 10 (122 gives a range of 117 to 127).
• Loop length is 4 beats.
• Length is one quaver.
• Pitch is set to position 1 (this is the position in the Strings idea staff).
• this node contains copies of all the drums in heuristic 1.1, but the probability grid is 100% on the second quaver of the bar, not on the first. It is worth noting that the name of the dmms is different (incorporating a + sign), so that the NOT and attractor lists can show a differentiation if necessary between these similarly named dmms.
• This node will chose between whether the second stab in the bar comes on 2+ or on 4+.
• heuristics are processed by a custom rhythm adaptor. This adaptor checks if the next chord or end of phrase is a quaver away from any given triggered quaver. If so, it adds 5 to the pitch position. This selects the next bar’s notes from the Strings idea staff.
• this analysis offers a way to turn qualitative musical data into quantitative empirical data, and demonstrates the validity and approach described above in terms of the treatment of chord transposition/manipulation, chord construction and note generation.
• this analytical method is subjective and iterative.
• its findings provide a road map for an empirically measurable set of heuristics which can be used to test the validity of the analysis.
• a road map is identified to take qualitative analysis and turn it into a set of heuristics which can be judged quantitatively.
• the piece under consideration is the first 24 bars of Bach’s C minor prelude from the first book of the Well Tempered Clavier (1722). This contains data for three algorithms which are obtainable from the first 24 bars’ data. These bars constitute the vast majority of the first version of the piece, after which it jumps from bar 25 to bar 35 and ends with one bar of C major, totalling 27 bars (Ledbetter, 2002, p. 152).
• FIG. 19 shows the typical structure of entropic, redundant and developed material in the first two bars, using the predefined colour scheme of red to indicate “entropic” (darkest shading, position of notes 1 to 3 in bar 1 and position of notes in positions 2 to 4 in treble of bar 2), green to indicate “redundant” (mid-coloured shading, position of note 4 in bar 1 and all remaining notes in bar 1 and bar 2 except those expressly identified as red or yellow) and yellow to indicate “developed” (lightest shading and first note in both treble and base in bar 2).
• Section 1 is the first variant of this process from bar 1 to bar 18.
• Section 2 is the second variant present in bars 19 and 20.
• Section 3 is the third variant that lasts from bar 21 to bar 24.
• form is elastic and dictated by refining a set of brief requirements based on the structure of the multi-media product, such as a film, for which it is composing. Described are processes that detail how chord sections may be lengthened and shortened through the use of different briefing requirements.
• chordEist //create a list of chords to hold all generated chords Eist ⁇ Chord> chordEist
• the phrase 2 sequence requires an escape phrase, which occurs at bars 13 and 14 as a perfect cadence to the relative major, Eb.
• This sequence is generated from a scale from the relative minor. Therefore, the escape phrase can be focused on the specific key of the relative major without worrying about what was going on in the sequence beforehand.
• This phrase reveals the second set of heuristics which are an adaptation of the first.
• This by definition, means that it is a self-contained section since it acts as a build-up to the escape phrase at bar 21.
• the phrase currently features a chord scheme which moves from the subdominant minor to the second inversion tonic via a rising diminished chord. These chords have a tonic C minor chord superimposed at the top of their voicing. There are two ways to handle this. Firstly, create two chords at this point in time and give rules for their voicings. Secondly, give the C minor notes context within the existing chords.
• Section 2 (D.7) considers that this two-bar phrase appears to be playing on the fact that the first two notes of the tonic triad, C and Eb here, can be extensions for many other chords that would have these as higher notes within the chord - or extensions.
• findChordWith() is a function that returns a major or minor chord with any number of extensions (7ths, 9ths, etc.); it can also return a diminished chord. (An Ab5 can be potentially returned in this case as an Adim.)
• the stance taken is that the results sound idiomatic for the piece in question.
• This qualitative approach of listening to the returned values and assessing them through perception can offer a bulwark against criticisms such as that articulated by Ball (2011, p. 69), who suggests that “it’s a common habit of musical iconoclasts who seek ‘theoretical’ justifications for their experiments ... to use abstract reasoning that takes no account of how music is actually heard”.
• This phrase is interpreted as two phrases repeated.
• the first acts as an escape phrase to sequence phrase 6 through bars 21 and 22. It would be possible to loop these two bars, but they feel as if they require embellishment throughout the repeat with rising extensions (as in fact the piece does in bars 23 and 24).
• the need to embellish a repeated phrase is how an answer phrase is described: one that, if repeated, appears to be building to a climactic release of a cadence resolution.
• This phrase is generated by creating a series of chords that are all cadences to the tonic, in a way which gives a rising melody by creating an initial tonic-chord texture and choosing a melody note which is the closest viable option to the top of the main texture. (This viability is based on the note being far enough away from the main texture to become a cue (Deliege, 2001) as is discussed later.)
• the subsequent choice is a cadence chord to the tonic and repeat of the tonic texture whilst selecting the treble’s first note of the bar to be the next available note above the previous bar’s top note from the cadence chord’s various possibilities.
• the next extension upwards for the treble’s first note (in the previous cadence chord’s bar) is used. This may cause the next down note of the texture from the top melody note to fall more than an octave away from the melody note in position 1 of the treble. However, by re-voicing the texture to be higher the texture is brought to within the octave boundary of the top note in the right hand at position 1.
• the bass figuration stays the same unless it ends up starting on the same interval as the treble texture, in which case it moves one inversion higher to offer a harmonic alternative.
• the current analysis is not concerned with the embellishment of the dominant ending for this piece. Suffice to say, the previous sequence phrase requires an escape phrase.
• the escape phrase in this context is a tonic chord for two bars. This is in keeping with the original version of the piece which cut to bar 35, (Ledbetter, 2002).
• FIG. 20 shows the bass and treble notes within the dominant chord related to the given bar’ s root.
• red-coloured (darkest shade) notes show the entropic nature of the new observed pattern.
• bar two the 3-5-3 structure is now redundant and the 1-3-1 is entropic and unrelated as a development to bar one’s 5-7-5. This is therefore red (see C.3).
• bar three both become redundant and the b3 is a development, therefore shown in yellow (lightest shade).
• Bar two contains an entropic bass note with regards to the chord’s root; however, this is clearly a development of the pedal from bar one because the chord has changed.
• the notes appearing in semiquaver five are a chord note below the previous note. This is redundant since this has already been seen in bar one.
• bar two the pitch direction arrows in the analysis become completely redundant in nature, thus proving the applied methodology.
• Bar three is the first diminished chord out of two in the considered section. This chord changes the fundamental nature of how we express interval positions. Initially, these diminished bars appear to function as dominants, calling a relative minor to the root note of the diminished chord in semiquaver three, instead of the major. This is not redundant, it is a new development of the original compositional concept, hence it is coloured yellow (lightest shade) in the diagram. Treating these diminished chords as dominants with their local dominant appearing on the third semiquaver is in keeping with the principle of secondary dominants.
• Bar 4 gives us our first alteration to the figuration pattern seen in the first three bars. In practical terms, this is simply because the chosen interval jump from the 1st to 2nd semiquaver in the bass means that if the downward pattern continued then the bass note at semiquaver 1 would be repeated in semiquaver position 5. The requirement for this note to rise is therefore a development of the material at hand and coloured yellow. This happens in 10 out of the 24 bars analysed.
• the table in FIG. 24 shows the fifth semiquaver in the bass and the chord component on which it lands. There appears to be no correlation between the chords’ local dominant 5th (in semiquavers position 3) being in the bass or treble and the upward or downward movement of the 5th bass semiquaver.
• Bars 7, 8 and 9 offer no new information apart from the melody in semiquaver 1 , so much so that it is interesting to note that bars 8 and 9 are complete (yet transposed) copies of bars 6 and 7. This is an important aesthetic observation because the heuristics we define will be capable of creating multiple different versions and voicings in such circumstances. It is important to note how Bach uses complete redundancy, repeating his voicing and textural decisions to give form to the listener’s temporal predictions.
• This bar also resets the bass pedal back to the tonic through the jump of a perfect fourth. This is entropic considering the bass’s falling movement in the piece so far. Bar 14 introduces a completely new idea in the bass by moving stepwise up to the fourth degree of the bar’s chord. This is completely out of character with the piece so far, which uses intervals from the given chord in this position, and hints at the algorithm which develops in later sections of the piece.
• Bar 16 introduces an interesting dilemma for the 3-5-3 relationship. If this bar is interpreted as a Ddim chord, then the C and Eb in position 3 bear no relevance to the dominant A of D.
• the dominant must be either F7 or Ab.
• Ab makes no musical sense because it would imply the bar is the chord of Db.
• F7 sustains the pattern of the 3-5-3 whilst making musical sense as the dominant to Bb7Z?9.
• the Bb chord functions perfectly within the chord scheme by linking to the F7 in the previous bar. (Audibly, this bar and the next remain highly chromatic.)
• Bar 17 contains the second diminished chord that we have experienced within the piece so far, (accepting bar 17’s reading).
• the 3 5 3 relationship points to yet another secondary dominant (minor dominant) at semiquaver 3, as experienced in the first diminished chord of bar 3. This conventionally would signify a dominant function for the diminished chord.
• the only relationship we can see this bass note has in the pieces is that of the bass note in the next bar. This does however lead to a simple heuristic with regards to diminished chords: that they contain the bass note of the following bar’s chord.
• Bar 18 contains movement in the bass which is noted in the Autograph, Kirnberger, Gerber and Walther manuscripts (Palmer, 1994). Only the Kroll edition leaves this Bb note as a C (Ledbetter, 2002). Originally believed to be a copying error, this has later been poorly justified in the name of consistency. This is clearly a cue that is being established by Bach to end the section and emphasize the move to F minor in bar 19. This chord ends the section in question.
• the pedal note the entropic nature of the notes in the bass in each bar’s first position means we need a generative heuristic to create these possibilities. By looking at the availability of the current pedal note within the bar’s chord and the pitch value that the note takes, it is possible to calculate this bass by checking if the bass note of the previous bar falls within the current bar’ s chord. If the note does not, the next closest available note is selected from the chord which is below or above the previous bar’s bass note.
• the tonic C is the origin, meaning that the F# which is 6 semitones below this C is the reset position.
• the pattern is reset and the nearest note within the current chord to the initial starting bass note on the tonic is used. This can be seen when at bar 12 the note jumps from bar 11 ’ s bass of G to the original tonic of C.
• the pedal switches; rather than always falling, it chooses the closest note that is either higher or lower. From bar 6 to 7 it falls from C to Bb, whereas from bar 12 to 13 it rises from C to D.
• bass [1] If the bass hand note at [1] is the 5th, then make this the 7th of the dominant 7th. If this is not the case, then bass [1] must be the 3rd: we therefore make [2] the 5th of the dominant.
• this note attempts to be the chord position below the value in [3] (which is a copy of [1]) unless it comes within a tone of the value at position [0] and risks making a cue in the bass. In this event it rises to the next available chord position.
• treble [1] equals the 3rd chord not in a voicing that puts it above the bass’s 5th at position [1].
• the melody note is never more than an octave above the lowest note in the bar’ s treble, nor is it equal to or below the last note in the previous bar (which is the same as treble [1] in the previous bar). Consequently, we choose a random note from the available notes in the bar’s chord which meets both requirements.
• the second half of the bar is a copy of the first.
• Section 2 Bars 19 - 20 The following two sections are based on developing the core texture of the tonic minor figuration.
• the score in FIG. 32 shows all possible combinations (spanning an octave) of major and minor triads with C and Eb as the top extensions. Rules exclude certain bars: red X chords are unavailable through D5.6 pseudo code, purple X chords are excluded due to texture limitations.
• chords are triadic in form? Why not incorporate 4ths or 5ths to create chords such as the second inversion C minor chord we are moving towards at bar 21? Many of these combinations produce either the chords we have already given, or chords which make no conventional sense. Adding 4ths below many of the chords above simply produces a different inversion of the given chord. Likewise, incorporating 5ths, in other words removing certain notes to make holes in the chord voicing, either misses out a major and minor third to produce a more harmonically bare voicing, or produces dissonance due to a clash between a perfect fifth and any chord made of two major, or two minor thirds.
• the cue notes must appear at least a minor third away from any other notes within the main texture or a melodic cue is established. If the semiquavers at position [4] travel outwards from the main texture (treble rising and bass falling), then we are given maximum availability for the treble notes at positions [0] and [8]. However, the notes in the bass cannot repeat the pitch of treble position [0], nor fall more than an octave below the pitch of the highest note in the bass throughout the rest of the figuration (the final requirement being a stylistic observation of the range of voicings throughout the given piece). This gives a trade-off in the bass: if the pitch rises at position [4], then there is more room for the bass but less for the treble.
• This dilemma reveals one of the first cases of iterative recomposition that the system must employ. If a desired chord scheme is required, then the chord texture may have to be rewritten to incorporate it. If rewriting the chord texture cannot accommodate the desired chord scheme, then the chord scheme must be rewritten.
• This iterative process of negotiation offers a potentially descriptive insight into the compositional process. For the given example’s textures, the chords in the score of FIG. 32 that are not available are crossed out in purple.
• chord chosen for position [0] never repeats, the figuration should never become a different cue from the overall build up in tension that this section is creating, and therefore it should be extendable.
• the full range of available chords are not equally effective, depending on whether they extend below the C and Eb by one, two or three extensions.
• bass at [1] is the 5th, then make this the 7th of the dominant 7th (of the featured chord in the main figuration), below bass at [1].
• This heuristic places a value in the bass at position [0] which is either 1 or 2 (50%/50%) chord-component positions below the bass at position [1] This value will now randomise a given probability tree branch for H2.3.
• This heuristic checks the pitch range available for the notes in position [0] in both the treble and bass, where we intend to place chord notes from chords featured in the score of FIG. 32. This process is highlighted in the keyboard representation of FIG. 33. Obtain an integer range from a minor third below the treble’s lowest note and a minor third above the bass’s highest note.
• chord elements are referred to here as “1” and “2” respectively.
• Section 2 uses C and Eb texture as a basis for cadencing and extending extensions upwards.
• the phrase analysis in Section C.5.7 is capable of generating a chord scheme which provides the cadential, build up.
• This section contains a repeating texture in a similar way to the H2 set. There is a higher chance that the treble and bass at position [4] will use the dominant 7th of the bar’s chord to obtain their pitches.
• the use of the diminished chord over the G pedal in bar 22 at position [4] shows that the cadence chords generated by the phrase analysis rules do not just have be the dominant. They can in fact be any chord that is conventionally one cadence position away from the tonic. We can discover candidate chords by gathering evidence from this piece in general, as well as other works of the time.
• the featured cadence chords here are an F sharp diminished seventh and a dominant b9.
• the dominant 7th b9 features highly throughout the rest of the climax (which is excluded from this analysis) from bar 25 to the end.
• aspects of the present invention may be provided in a downloadable form or otherwise on a computer readable medium, such as a CD ROM, that contains program code that, when instantiated, executes the link embedding functionality at a web-server or the like.
• a computer readable medium such as a CD ROM
• the invention disclosed herein is applicable to any musical scale and any cultural precondition, not just Western music which has been used as an exemplary format.
• the Form Atom provides an extremely important building block upon which generative composition can be based
• the totality of the disclosure includes multiple independent (but related) aspects that, together, provide a comprehensive implementation having considerable detail, including the use of the hypemode framework.
• the classification and manipulation of textures is highly significant.
• stand-alone technical solutions are related to the process by which chord spacing is determined, as well as how primitives are developed and employed within the context of building a generative system.
• the analysis technique coupled with the generative framework, gives a foundation for looking at music hierarchically in a way that leads to effective output. This is not only a useful method of creating aesthetically functional generative film composition and game scores that can, in fact, be orchestrated personally by the user provided that they are given access to the system via an interface and a database containing Form Atoms meta-tagged to artists and songs of their personal liking.

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