EMI: Experiments

in Musical IntelligenceOne man’s dream to create new works from the composers who are

decomposing

What is EMI?

• Written by David Cope

• Originally a fix for “composer’s block”

• Became a tool for composing entire works

• Writes works that emulate styles of various composers

Central Challenges

• Creating a grammar that holds all of the basic rules for coherent music

• Using previous works to bring life into the music

• Passing off new works as written by the “original” composer

Music as seen by EMI

Implementation of EMI

• Parses existing musical examples into a complex catalog of lexicons

• Augmented Transition Networks provide a way of linking lexicons of words into meaningful musical sentences

SPEAC Identifiers

• Statement - declaration of material

• Preparation - introductory gesture

• Extension - continuance of material or ideas

• Antecedent - active function

• Consequent – conclusive, paired with antecedent

SPEAC Analysis of Bach Chorale

Nested Musical Phrases

• Musical phrase analysis on multiple levels

Extracting the Essence

• Finding a composer’s signature and using it in the new works

• Two Mozart piano sonata excerpts:

Success of EMI

• Styles are always recognizable

• “EMI’s Mozart is better than 99 percent of non-Mozart classical music.” - Cope

• Performers can often feel the depth, richness, and emotion in EMI’s works

• Tested before experts at Eastman

• Live performance of Mozart’s 42nd

The End – Any Questions?