Computational Models of Musical Creativity

Anna Jordanous

DPhil Research 2007-2010

Music Informatics Research Centre,Department of Informatics

University of Sussex

Computational Models of Musical Creativity

Introducing my area of DPhil study

What I hope to achieve during my DPhil

Justifications for pursuing this line of research

September 2008Anna Jordanous: Computational Models of Musical Creativity

Introducing my DPhil study

My central research question is:

Can a computer create music in the Can a computer create music in the

same way a human does?same way a human does?

September 2008Anna Jordanous: Computational Models of Musical Creativity

Creating music as a human does

September 2008Anna Jordanous: Computational Models of Musical Creativity

Multi-disciplinary project combining arts and science

Music

Philosophy

Psychology

Cognitive Science

Artificial Intelligence

ComputationalNeuroscience

Computer Science

What I hope to achieve

Write computer programs that model musical creativity

Capture the key aspects of how the human mind works when we create music

September 2008Anna Jordanous: Computational Models of Musical Creativity

Existing theories about creativity and the mind (fortunately!)…

Margaret BodenArthur KoestlerMihalyi Csikzentmihalyi

…and plenty of computer systems that generate music…

In Google Scholar, the phrase “Music generation” returns 960 results

…but virtually nothing on linking theory to practice(which is where my work comes in)

Justification for this work

I hope to use these music generation models to explore the following questions:

When do we demonstrate creativity in a musical context?

How do we create new musical ideas - what cognitive processes are involved?

What theoretical understanding do we have of creativity?

How can we link such theory to creative practice?

What do we gain from studying creativity from a computational perspective?

September 2008Anna Jordanous: Computational Models of Musical Creativity

SummaryMy central research question is:

““Can a computer create music in the same way a human does?”Can a computer create music in the same way a human does?”

Interdisciplinary study: AI, cognitive science, music …

Constructing computational models that create music in a human-like way

Using these models to learn more about the cognitive processes involved in creativity

- How the mind works when we are being creative

September 2008Anna Jordanous: Computational Models of Musical Creativity

Thank you for your interest and attention!

September 2008Anna Jordanous: Computational Models of Musical Creativity