Computers composing music? Iamus generates non-conventional evolutionary algorithms to create original music without human intervention. The key to Iamus’s success is an algorithm that mimics the process of natural selection. It takes a fragment of music (itself generated at random), of any length, and mutates it. Each mutation is assessed to see whether it conforms to particular rules – some generic, such as that the notes have to be playable on the instrument in question, others genre-specific, so that features like the melodies and harmonies fit with what is typical for that style. Little by little, the initial random fragment becomes more and more like real music, and the ‘evolutionary process’ stops when all the rules are met. In this way, hundreds of variants can be generated from the same starting material.
Posted on: Tue, 12 Aug 2014 16:51:15 +0000