The analysis and synthesis of jazz by computer

  • Authors:

  • John Wade Ulrich

  • Affiliations:

  • Computing and Information Science Department, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico

  • Venue:
  • IJCAI'77 Proceedings of the 5th international joint conference on Artificial intelligence - Volume 2
  • Year:
  • 1977

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Abstract

The jazz musician has two problems. The first is the creation of melodic material. The second is the problem of fitting the melodic material into a particular harmonic structure. The work described in this paper concentrates on this second problem. To solve the problem we utilized a harmonic theory which allowed the identification of key centers and the assignment of functional meaning to chords. From this we constructed scales that were compatible with the analyzed harmonic structure. These scales were then used to translate abstract melodic material into sequences of notes that sound compatible with the background chords.