Human-Competitive Drum Track Generation in NEAT Drummer

Amy K. Hoover, Michael P. Rosario, and Kenneth O. StanleySchool of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

University of Central Florida

http://eplex.cs.ucf.edu/neatmusic

In What Areas Do Humans Still Reign Supreme?

• Mathematics?

• Games?

• Engineering?

• The computers are catching up!

Answer: Creativity

• Creativity is often called uniquely human• While computers solve problems routinely…• Few expect them to produce beauty or depth

• Art, music, literature, poetry• These are not the traditional province of machines

• If EC is truly human competitive, it must demonstrate it can compete on this final human frontier

An Elegant Theory of Musical Accompaniment

• Existing tracks are a scaffold upon which accompaniment is built

• Demonstrated through percussion tracks:– Music is a function over time– Desirable drum pattern (accompaniment): f(t)– Preexisting instrumental part (scaffold): p(t)– Easy way to find f(t): p(t)– g(p(t)) = f(t)

• NEAT Drummer: drum patterns are functions of other parts of a song

Encoding Drum Tracks From the Scaffold

Out

put L

evel

A kind of neural network(evolved)

Scaffold inputs

Accompaniment outputs

NEAT Drummer: Interactively Evolves the CPPN Accompaniment

Why Is It Human-Competitive? (1)

• Widely acknowledged that computer-generated music fails to capture global structure (McCormack, 2005; Husbands et al., 2007)– The scaffolding transmits the global sturcture to

the accompaniment: like a human

• Next: Listen to songs by Barry Taylor sequenced without percussion

Example: Johnny Cope

• Follows the global structure

Outputs

Johnny Cope

• Follows the global structure

Outputs

Oh! Susanna

Oh! Susanna

Why Is It Human Competitive? (2)• Barry Taylor comments on percussion generated for

his own songs:

• Conclusion: NEAT Drummer surpasses prior results in the field according to an experienced musician

“Those samples were amazing! … I have heard some ‘auto drum’ software in the past and the result, at least when applied to old traditional tunes, is usually appalling. I must confess that I was a little wary of listening to the results of your application applied to *my* sequences, but your work gives me renewed hope that great quality can indeed be achieved! Keep up the superb work! I wish you continued success in your project...and I'm thrilled to contribute in this small way!”

Why Is NEAT Drummer the Best? (1)• Simple theory overcomes a major hurdle: Global structure• Experienced musician endorses it above existing “auto-drum”

technology • It won the Best Paper Award in its field at EvoMUSART 2008:

Judged best by its peers• Amy Hoover presented it at the University of Central Florida

Showcase of Undergraduate Research Excellence in Physical Sciences, Mathematics, Computer Science and Engineering : It won 1st place out of 30 entries!

A. K. Hoover, M. P. Rosario, and K. O. Stanley. Scaffolding for interactively evolving novel drum tracks for existing songs. In M. G. et. al., editor, Proceedings of the Sixth European Workshop on Evolutionary and Biologically Inspired Music, Sound, Art and Design (EvoMUSART 2008), pages 412-422. Springer.

Why Is NEAT Drummer the Best? (2)

• Human-competitive in a uniquely human domain

• It brings attention to EC from a broader audience than exclusively focusing on technical fields– Complements such work well by rounding out the

sphere of non-human achievement

Additional Information• EPlex website: http://eplex.cs.ucf.edu• More from Barry Taylor (thanks, Barry!):

http://www.contemplator.com/tunebook/index.htm • http://members.shaw.ca/tunebook/ • More samples and comparisons: http://eplex.cs.ucf.edu/neatmusic

•Publications:•Amy K. Hoover and Kenneth O. Stanley. Exploiting Functional Relationships in Musical Composition.“ Connection Science Special Issue on Music, Brain, & Cognition (Arbington, UK, 2009)

•Amy K. Hoover, Michael P. Rosario, and Kenneth O. Stanley. Scaffolding for Interactively Evolving Novel Drum Tracks for Existing Songs." In Proceedings of the Sixth European Workshop on Evolutionary and Biologically Inspired Music, Sound, Art and Design (EvoMUSART 2008), pp. 412-422 (Springer, New York NY, 2008).