Live Computer Music Improvisation
Final Year Research Project
For my final year in MMPT in University of Limerick, I was required to create a research project over the course of the year. The developed project was an improvisational musical duet consisting of two performers, a human playing the violin and generative system on a computer.
This project aimed to look at the creative power each of them has over the sound and form of the piece, and how authorship is attributed to elements within the creative practice.
The system performer was created in the program Max MSP, a visual programming language commonly used for music synthesis. The system listens to the human performer and based off the notes played it performs a live accompaniment, creating the improvised piece.
A live demonstration of the piece was performed in the Computer Science and Information Systems building on UL campus.
The most prominent area of research in this project was "agency". Agency can be defined as something's ability to produce an effect. This project focused on how the creative agency of a human and a computer impacts the sound and form of an improvisational duet consisting of the two.
Both performers contribute to create the improvisational piece, each being an element in a temporary network that we can could "creativity" as whole.
The human begins by playing the main melody using an electronic violin. Their output is routed into the computer where it is analysed. Using a algorithmic music synthesis technique, Markov Chains, the computer responds with a unique accompaniment based off each note played.
If one performer is playing the main melody, the other plays the accompaniment to that melody. This swaps periodically throughout the piece, changing the power each of them has within the piece.
The apparent control that the system has over the piece displays its creative agency, as the choices it possesses and the limitations it creates affect the overall sound and form of the piece. The human performer displays their creative agency by the structure and melodic progression of the notes they play.
The development of this project began with research on related topics, specifically 'agency' and the origin of creativity being expressed as a network of elements working together as opposed to only the human mind.
After sufficient initial research was completed, many prototypes and iterations of the system were created, refining parts such as the techniques and quality of audio synthesis being used.
Further research included dealing with improvisation, real-time computer music improvisation and the problems faced coming both.
The image on the right is a simple flow chart done of the overall structure of the piece before the development of the program itself.
Below are two screenshots of the final Max MSP program. The first is the input window, where audio is taken from the violin and the notes are stored. Many more sub-windows lead to the analysis of duration, pitch and note quantization etc.
The second is the output window, which contains the Markov Chain for the computer's melodic output. Sub-windows contain other features such as the audio synthesis and beat quantization.
Many other windows that are omitted exist within the program, each dealing with a different aspect of the computer performer.
