Newsgroups: comp.ai.alife
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From: hoskinsd@bcsaic.boeing.com (Douglas Hoskins)
Subject: Re: Help - Evolutionary Music?
Message-ID: <DHDDu3.Mpx@bcsaic.boeing.com>
Organization: Boeing Computer Services
References: <47400d$nga@news.inbe.net>
Date: Wed, 1 Nov 1995 15:03:39 GMT
Lines: 43

In article <47400d$nga@news.inbe.net>,
Arthur Gallagher <arthur@innet.lu> wrote:
>I'm trying to do research into the possibilities of the intersection
>between evolutionary systems and music.
>
>Anyone out there got any pointers? Please post reply or email.
>
>Much Appreciated
>
>Art
>

The notion of an evolutionary, or even random, exploration of
musical sequences is not an entirely new one.  As Fogel (1995)
observes, in a section (6.2, p 252) on prediction and the language
like nature of intelligence, 

     "Mozart published a pamphlet explaining how to compose 'as many German
     Waltzes as one pleases' by throwing dice (see Scholes, 1950, plate
     37)" 
(Here Fogel is quoting Bennett (1977)).  

The question is: what should be evolved - the final musical score or the
rules for generating a score from random throws.  The results
Fogel cites for English text, and Mozart's pamphlet, suggest the latter.


Bennett, W. R. (1977) "How Artificial Is Intelligence?", American
Scientist, Nov.-Dec. pp. 694-702.

Fogel, D. B. (1995), "Evolutionary Programming: toward an new
philosophy of machine intelligence," IEEE Press. 

Scholes, P. A. (1950) The Oxford Companion to Music, New York: Oxford
University Press.



-- 
|----------------------------------------------------------------------|
|                             |                                        |
| Dr.Douglas Hoskins, Ph.D.   | "He who lives with the most joys -     |
| Boeing D&SG                 |                                  wins" |
