With increased availability of smartphones, game consoles and computers with capabilities of synthesizing procedural music in real time comes the challenge of realizing new tools for generative music composition for games, inter-media art and musical live performance.This work defines a new method of creating music, “procedural sequencing”, and it presents a musical software that attempts to solve some of the design challenges of bridging interactive elements and more traditional tools for music composition. The software combines aspects of live coding with tracker sequencing.

Os múltiplos trabalhos de sistemas multiagentes musicais realizados nos últimos anos demonstram o interesse crescente na pesquisa de sistemas de composição e de performance musical que utilizem a tecnologia de agentes computacionais, sendo que apresentam um interesse maior por aqueles sistemas que integram técnicas de composição algorítmica, componentes de vida artificial e interatividade. Observamos também que a maioria dos trabalhos existentes apresentam muitas limitações em termos de escopo e flexibilidade, normalmente apresentando codificação musical simbólica e a resolução de um único problema, sendo que a motivação é mais técnica do que musical. Nesse contexto, surgem arcabouços voltados à criação de sistemas multiagentes musicais, como o Ensemble e o Interactive Swarm Orchestra, oferecendo flexibilidade para a modelagem e implementação de sistemas desse tipo, diversificando tanto os tipos de aplicação, tendo um propósito composicional ou performático, como os tipos de codificação musical que podem ser utilizados. Partimos da aparição dessas ferramentas para estudar o agente musical a partir de uma perspectiva interna, focando nos seus raciocínios, que são processos que definem o comportamento do agente no ambiente virtual do sistema e que são fundamentais para determinar e melhorar o seu valor composicional. Os arcabouços estudados se diferenciam por permitir a utilização de áudio como possível formato de codificação musical, o aproveitamento da espacialização sonora e a exploração da interatividade nos aplicativos, seja esta apenas entre agentes computacionais ou entre agentes e usuários humanos. Pretendemos portanto, nessa pesquisa, abordar sistemas com essas características. Através de extensões nos arcabouços e estudos de caso com motivação estética pretendemos dar continuidade a esses projetos e ao mesmo tempo validar e divulgar a sua utilização entre os potenciais usuários das ferramentas, como compositores, músicos interessados em performance e outros entusiastas dos sistemas musicais interativos. / Multiple musical multiagent systems have been developed in the last years proving the increasing interest in composition and musical performance systems that exploit intelligent agents technology. Theres an special focus on systems that integrate algorithmic composition techniques, artificial life and interactivity. We can also observe that most of these existing projects show many flexibility and scope limitations, as they normally use symbolic musical notation and they solve a single issue or scenario, as well as they have a technical motivation rather than a musical one. In that context, some musical multiagent systems frameworks as Ensemble and Interactive Swarm Orchestra emerge, trying to help the modeling and development of this kind of musical systems, diversifying the applications\' types, as they can be composition problems or musical performances, and allowing the inclusion of other kind of musical content communication. Through these new tools we study the musical agent from an internal perspective, focusing on its reasoning components, processes that define the behavior of an agent on its system\'s virtual environment and that are essential to determine and improve its compositional value. The studied frameworks show unique features as they support audio as a possible musical notation format; they exploit sound spatialization and they work with interactivity in their applications, including agent-to-agent or human-to-agent interaction. We will explore this type of systems on this research. Through framework extensions and aesthetics-oriented study cases we pretend to continue these projects and validate them at same time. We also will contact potential users for these tools, as composers and musicians interested in performances or other musical interactive systems enthusiasts.

This thesis examines the composition of three different musical works through the use of my constraint-based patterns. I have explored the patterns through spreadsheets and also SuperCollider: a software for algorithmic composition and audio synthesis. The aim is to find how the patterns can be used to reach clear contrasts while maintaining coherence in the music, as well as finding challenges and possibilities within the patterns, while exploring how evaluation of the artistic results can contribute to improved methods. While I see the main method as autoethnographical, with the core focus on composing, I have also used feedback from other composers, and through focus groups, as a way to collect data. Throughout this thesis I describe my process of constructing patterns and composing music, accompanied by my reasoning and relevant feedback. My results from analyzing feedback, score and patterns are that while some ways of using the patterns are well suited for achieving contrast and coherence, problems arose related to (among other things) musical form and predictability. Evaluation through feedback and interviews resulted in a better understanding of the patterns, and different workflows allowed for different viability in the evaluation. The most valuable insight is that the greater the amount of composition parameters which are controlled through constraint-based patterns, the simpler each individual composition parameter has to be in order to reach contrasting results that I find satisfying. My conclusion is that I can therefore design each individual composition parameter with high coherence to reach contrasting results when the composition parameters are applied on the same musical structure.

Video game developers attempt to convey moods to emphasize their game's narrative. Events that occur within the game usually convey success or failure in some way meaningful to the story's progress. Ideally, when these events occur, the intended change in mood should be perceivable to the player. One way of doing so is to change the music. This requires musical tracks to represent many possible moods, states and game events. This can be very taxing on composers, and encoding the control flow (when to transition) of the tracks can prove to be tricky as well. This thesis presents AUD.js, a system developed for procedural music generation for JavaScript-based web games. By taking input from game events, the system can create music corresponding to various Western perceptions of music mood. The system was trained with classic video game music. Game development students rated the mood of 80 pieces, after which statistical representations of those pieces were extracted and added into AUD.js. AUD.js can adapt its generated music to new sets of input parameters, thereby updating the perceived mood of the generated music at runtime. We conducted A/B tests comparing static music, both composed and computer-generated, to dynamically adapting music. We find that AUD.js provides reasonably effective music for games, but that adaptiveness of the music does not necessarily improve player experience over composed music. By conducting a user study during Global Game Jam 2014, we also find that since AUD.js provides a software solution to music composition, it can be a useful tool for game music integration under time pressure.

Submitted by Fernando Souza (fernandoafsou@gmail.com) on 2017-08-17T15:58:41Z No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.pdf: 2509071 bytes, checksum: 7e5e11344bc01beb22fdb94bee3ccdcf (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-08-17T15:58:41Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 arquivototal.pdf: 2509071 bytes, checksum: 7e5e11344bc01beb22fdb94bee3ccdcf (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-02-24 / This work deals with the development of a framework based on computational and optimization methods for algorithmic composition, more precisely, for the generation of guitar solos. The proposed approach was considered semiautomatic because it makes use of small melodic fragments (licks), previously created from human models. The solos generated are from the musical style Blues and they are applied over a well-known harmonic model called 12-Bar Blues. A licks database was created in which small instances containing a subset of them were randomly derived so as to diversify the possible candidates to be in the solo that will be generated. Once the instance is created, one solves an optimization problem that consists of determining the optimal sequence of a subset of licks by using a integer linear programming model. A set of rules was implemented for creating a matrix that de nes the transition cost between the licks. The outputs generated were stored in the MusicXML format and they can be read by most applications that provide support for this type of le and are capable of displaying it using the tablatures format. The solos created were evaluated by a sample of 173 subjects, classi ed as beginners, intermediates and professional musicians. A web application was developed to streamline the evaluation process. The results obtained show that the solos whose licks were optimally sequenced were statistically much better evaluated than those randomly sequenced, which indicates that the proposed methodology was capable of producing, on average, solos with a favorable percentage of acceptance. / Este trabalho trata do desenvolvimento de um framework baseado em m etodos computacionais e de otimização para a composição algoritmica, mais especifi camente, para a geração de solos de guitarra. A abordagem proposta foi considerada semiautomatica pois faz uso de pequenos fragmentos mel odicos (licks) previamente criados a partir de modelos humanos. Os solos gerados possuem caracter sticas do estilo musical Blues e s~ao aplicados sobre um modelo de harmonia bastante conhecido denominado 12-Bar Blues. Um banco de dados de licks foi criado, do qual são realizados sorteios de instâncias menores do conjunto, diversifi cando os possíveis candidatos a estarem no solo a ser gerado. De posse da inst^ancia, um problema de otimiza c~ao, que consiste em sequenciar de forma otimizada um subconjunto de licks, e resolvido utilizando um modelo de programa c~ao linear inteira. Implementou-se um conjunto de regras para a criação de uma matriz que de ne o custo de transição entre os licks. As sa das geradas s~ao armazenadas no formato MusicXML e podem ser lidas pela maioria dos aplicativos que possuam suporte a esse tipo de arquivo e disponibilizem visualiza c~ao no formato de tablaturas. Os solos criados foram avaliados por uma amostra de 173 indiv duos, classi cados como m usicos iniciantes, intermedi arios e pro fissionais. Uma aplicação web foi desenvolvida para agilizar o processo de avaliação. Os resultados obtidos demonstram que os solos cujos licks foram sequenciados de forma otimizada foram estatisticamente mais bem avaliados que aqueles sequenciados aleatoriamente, indicando que a metodologia proposta foi capaz de produzir, em m edia, solos com percentual de aceitação favorável.

GranCloud is new application for the generation of real-time granular synthesis in the SuperCollider programming environment. Although the software was initially programmed for use in the interactive composition Creo, it was implemented as an independent program for use in any computer music project. GranCloud consists of a set of SuperCollider classes representing granular clouds and parameter objects defining control data for the synthesis. The software is very flexible, allowing users to create their own grain synthesis definitions and control parameters. Cloud objects encapsulate all of the control data and methods necessary to render virtually any type of granular synthesis. Parameter objects provide several simple methods for mapping grain parameters to complex changing data sets or to external data sources. GranCloud simplifies the complex task of generating granular synthesis, allowing composers to focus less on technological issues and more on musical considerations during the compositional process.

The delegating of thought, memory and action outside of the human body, inseparable from the process of individuation and identity formation, and the following implications for music establish an underlying theme of this text. It is a reflection on the process of "supplementation," of prosthetization or exteriorization in the recent and contemporary milieu of music making, in which nothing is any longer immediately at hand, where everything is found mediated and instrumentalized, technicized, unbalanced.

This thesis is concerned with theoretical as well as practical aspects of tree languages. It consists of an introduction and eight papers, organised into three parts. The first part is devoted to algorithmic learning of regular tree languages, the second part to bisimulation minimisation of tree automata, and the third part to tree-based generation of music. We now summarise the contributions made in each part. In Part I, an inference algorithm for regular tree languages is presented. The algorithm is a generalisation of a previous algorithm by Angluin, and the learning task is to derive, with the aid of a so-called MAT-oracle, the minimal (partial and deterministic) finite tree automaton M that recognises the target language U over some ranked alphabet Σ. The algorithm executes in time O(|Q| |δ| (m + |Q|)), where Q and δ are the set of states and the transition table of M , respectively, r is the maximal rank of any symbol in Σ, and m is the maximum size of any answer given by the oracle. This improves on a similar algorithm by Sakakibara as dead states are avoided both in the learning phase and in the resulting automaton. Part I also describes a concrete implementation which includes two extensions of the basic algorithm. In Part II, bisimulation minimisation of nondeterministic weighted tree automata (henceforth, wta) is introduced in general, and for finite tree automata (which can be seen as wta over the Boolean semiring) in particular. The concepts of backward and forward bisimulation are extended to wta, and efficient minimisation algorithms are developed for both types of bisimulation. In the special case where the underlying semiring of the input automaton is either cancellative or Boolean, these minimisation algorithms can be further optimised by adapting existing partition refinement algorithms by Hopcroft, Paige, and Tarjan. The implemented minimisation algorithms are demonstrated on a typical task in natural language processing. In Part III, we consider how tree-based generation can be applied to algorithmic composition. An algebra is presented whose operations act on musical pieces, and a system capable of generating simple musical pieces is implemented in the software Treebag: starting from input which is either generated by a regular tree grammar or provided by the user via a digital keyboard, a number of top-down tree transducers are applied to generate a tree over the operations provided by the music algebra. The evaluation of this tree yields the musical piece generated.

Theory as an approach to generative composition and interactive computer music. Inspired by the notion of Performance Indeterminacy, software has been developed that attempts to simulate the interactions of improvising performers using a multi-agent system based on the ‘Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma’. Composition activities and programming activities have formed a symbiotic relationship throughout the creation of the portfolio as each has constantly informed the other. Stylistically, the works presented fall into the experimental genre, although individually they address a wide range of aesthetic goals. The main contribution of this portfolio is a new approach to generative composition based on behavioural models, creating a sense of form bottom-up through modelling the social dynamics of music performance. Through this approach, the direct modelling of musical structures is avoided; instead larger scale forms emerge through the interactions of an ensemble of ‘improvising’ agents. This method offers a departure from previous complex systems work in the area of music, creating computer models of specific musical situations. Links between the Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma and music are also established and combined with current music technologies. / Thesis(Ph.D.)- University of Adelaide, Elder Conservatorium of Music, 2008

Theory as an approach to generative composition and interactive computer music. Inspired by the notion of Performance Indeterminacy, software has been developed that attempts to simulate the interactions of improvising performers using a multi-agent system based on the ‘Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma’. Composition activities and programming activities have formed a symbiotic relationship throughout the creation of the portfolio as each has constantly informed the other. Stylistically, the works presented fall into the experimental genre, although individually they address a wide range of aesthetic goals. The main contribution of this portfolio is a new approach to generative composition based on behavioural models, creating a sense of form bottom-up through modelling the social dynamics of music performance. Through this approach, the direct modelling of musical structures is avoided; instead larger scale forms emerge through the interactions of an ensemble of ‘improvising’ agents. This method offers a departure from previous complex systems work in the area of music, creating computer models of specific musical situations. Links between the Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma and music are also established and combined with current music technologies. / Thesis(Ph.D.)- University of Adelaide, Elder Conservatorium of Music, 2008