This thesis implements Milton Babbitt's time-point system for music composition via the creation of a computer software application for the Macintosh computer. This system asks the composer to enter musical information, which is used to calculate pitch, duration, articulation, texture, octave, and silence, for the time-point composition. The application generates a file of musical information that is compatible with a performance application; the performance application will execute the composition communicating with MIDI-compatible musical instruments.The purpose of this project was to create a compositional tool that would implement the time-point system by reducing hours of hand calculation and tedium, and would provide an accessible and efficient approach to time-point composition. It is intended that this application be used to assist both the serious composer as well as the student of music composition. / School of Music

An Analytical System for Electronic Music is a systematized method for the analysis of an electronic work and is directed towards making electronic music (E. M.) more accessible to the general audience and the experienced analyst.The uniqueness of E. M. is characterized by new sonic materials. These new sonic compositions require new methods of analysis. Because electronic music composition is sound dependent, a look at the surface, syntax, and the way in which the different hierarchical levels interact had to be considered. The word "topography" was adapted to conceptualize the formal and structural principles of the medium.In most cases scores are not available for electronic music compositions.Because of this, new perceptual and cognitive capabilities are required by both the analyst and appreciative listener.In E. M., pitch, duration, loudness, timbre, and the spatial properties of sound have an equal potential to be the primary generator of the musical material. The Analytical System assists the analyst in identifying significant musical events in any parameter. Pitch-contour, vertical-density, attack-density, dynamic-contour, timbral-characteristics, and spatial-location graphs are integral components of the method. Adaptable to any hierarchical level, the graphs clearly depict the sonic activity. With the addition of a detailed graphic representation of the significant musical events and objective verbal descriptions, an electronic work can be accurately recorded in sufficient detail to allow indepth analysis.The System is purposefully broad in its approach to the individual electronic work. It has been devised to be applicable to the many diverse styles of the medium. The method of analysis will easily guide the analyst through a large portion of the literature of electronic music.

電腦音樂作曲一直是電腦音樂研究者的夢想。本論文中，我們要探討的是從給定的多首音樂中，利用音樂作曲規則探勘的方式，找出給定音樂中的樣式，以產生具備這些音樂風格的新音樂。我們針對，音樂結構、和弦風格和音樂動機三項音樂特性做分析與探勘。在音樂結構部分，我們利用資料探勘技術分析音樂結構，並且學習音樂結構的特性。在旋律風格部分，我們分析每首音樂旋律的和弦以做為旋律的特徵，並從中探勘音樂的旋律風格。音樂動機部份，我們探勘出音樂動機，並探勘出音樂中音樂動機的重要性，以建立音樂動機挑選模型。最後根據音樂結構、和弦、音樂動機，三項音樂特性的學習結果產生整首音樂。在效果評估方面，我們採用類似Turing Test的方式，以測試機器產生的音樂和人所作曲的音樂之辨別率。結果顯示產生的音樂和人所作曲的音樂不易分辨。另外，實驗也顯示系統所產生的音樂在旋律及和弦上接近給定的音樂風格。 / Computer music composition has been the dream of the computer music researcher. In this thesis, we investigate the approach to discover the rules of music composition from given music objects, and automatically generate a new music object style similar to the given music objects. To discover the rules of music composition, the music is analyzed by addressing three music properties, music structure, melody style and motif. We exploit the data mining techniques to analyze music structure. For the melody style, chord is utilized to represent the feature of melody and melody style is discovered from chords of music objects. For the motif, modified repeating pattern finding algorithm is employed to discover the motives. Then, the motif selection model is constructed. A new music object is generated based on the discovered rules in terms of three music properties. To measure the effectiveness of proposed computer music composition approach, we adopt the method similar to the Turing test to test the discrimination between machine-generated and human-composed music. The result showed that it is hard to discriminate. Another experiment showed that the style of generated music is similar to the given music objects.

A system for generative rhythmic modeling is presented. The work aims to explore computational models of creativity, realizing them in a system designed for realtime generation of semi-improvisational music. This is envisioned as an attempt to develop musical intelligence in the context of structured improvisation, and by doing so to enable and encourage new forms of musical control and performance; the systems described in this work, already capable of realtime creation, have been designed with the explicit intention of embedding them in a variety of performance-based systems. A model of qaida, a solo tabla form, is presented, along with the results of an online survey comparing it to a professional tabla player's recording on dimensions of musicality, creativity, and novelty. The qaida model generates a bank of rhythmic variations by reordering subphrases. Selections from this bank are sequenced using a feature-based approach. An experimental extension into modeling layer- and loop-based forms of electronic music is presented, in which the initial modeling approach is generalized. Starting from a seed track, the layer-based model utilizes audio analysis techniques such as blind source separation and onset-based segmentation to generate layers which are shuffled and recombined to generate novel music in a manner analogous to the qaida model.

Thesis (DBA(DoctorateofBusinessAdministration))--University of South Australia, 2004.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Victoria University of Wellington, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.C.A.-Res.)--University of Wollongong, 2005. / Typescript. Includes CD-ROM in back pocket. Includes bibliographical references: leaf 66-75.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Western Sydney, 2007. / A thesis presented to the University of Western Sydney, College of Arts, School of Communication Arts, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Title from title screen. Includes bibliographies. Thesis minus video and audio files also available online at: http://handle.uws.edu.au:8081/1959.7/35367.

This thesis investigates the design and implementation of an object-oriented toolkit for music notation. It considers whether object-oriented technology provides features that are desirable for representing music notation. The ability to sympathetically represent the conventions of music notation provides software tools that are flexible to use, and easily extended to represent less common features of music notation. The design and implementation of an object-oriented class hierarchy that captures the structural and semantic relationships of music notation symbols is described. Functions that search for symbols, and update symbol positions are also implemented. Traditional context-sensitive and spatial relationships between music symbols may be maintained, or extended to provide notational features found in modern music. MIDI functionality includes the ability to play music notation and to allow step-recording of MIDI events. The toolkit has been designed to simplify the creation of applications that make use of music notation; example applications are created to demonstrate its capabilities. / Microsoft Word / Adobe Acrobat 9.46 Paper Capture Plug-in

This thesis examines creativity as manifested in an online and transnational network of musicians who compose chipmusic, a kind of electronic music characteristic of 1980s early home computers and videogame sounds. The primary argument is that creativity in chipmusic worlds is networked, meaning that it is dispersed across various activities that are labelled as creative: chipmusic-making, technology-hacking practices that underpin the music, digital cultural practices such as use of social media, online releases, crowdsourcing, staged and screened performances, and any other activity related to chipmusic. The thesis examines the ways in which networked creativity is mediated in the chipscene from an interdisciplinary methodological viewpoint informed by ethnomusicology, anthropology, and sociology. Although the chipscene is geographically dispersed across more than thirty countries worldwide, the chipscene network is well-connected. Communication and music circulation practices of chipmusicians are enabled by the internet. This thesis primarily discusses chipmusic culture that suggests a rich context where creativity discourse is as intensely diverse as the chipscene itself, in which it is embedded. In looking at the creative process and performance practices, I employ a mixed methods approach based on ethnographic research methods and social network analysis, to examine how intrinsic and extrinsic aspects of chipmusic-making, such as ideology, cultural values, network infrastructure, chiptune poetics and aesthetics, distribution of creative roles, authenticity, differentiation, genre dynamics, and intellectual property issues, shape creativity.