A Genetic Algorithm For Music Composition

A GENETIC ALGORITHM FOR MUSIC COMPOSITION
GAVIN PENNYCOOK MSC INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (SYSTEMS) September 2001
Gavin Pennycook MSc Information Technology (Systems)
TABLE OF CONTENTS
TABLE OF FIGURES .................................................................................................................................... 4 ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................................................................... 6 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................................................ 7 CHAPTER 1 - INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................. 8 1.1 SOME MUSIC THEORY.......................................................................................................................... 9 1.1.1 Pitch........................................................................................................................................... 9 1.1.2 Rhythm..................................................................................................................................... 10 1.2 ALGORITHMIC MUSIC COMPOSITION ................................................................................................. 12 1.2.1 The Composition of Music ...................................................................................................... 13 1.2.2 Rule-Based Systems ................................................................................................................ 13 1.2.3 Learning Systems.................................................................................................................... 14 1.3 GENETIC ALGORITHMS ...................................................................................................................... 15 1.3.1 Considerations........................................................................................................................ 18 1.4 GENETIC ALGORITHMS AND MUSIC COMPOSITION ........................................................................... 21 1.4.1 Automated Fitness Function .................................................................................................... 21 1.4.2 Human Fitness Function ......................................................................................................... 22 CHAPTER 2 DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF PROGRAM .................................................. 24 2.1 REQUIREMENTS ................................................................................................................................. 24 2.2 DESIGN OF THE ALGORITHM .............................................................................................................. 25 2.2.1 Representation ......................................................................................................................... 25 2.2.2 Population ............................................................................................................................... 26 2.2.3 Operators................................................................................................................................. 26 2.2.4 Evaluation................................................................................................................................ 28 2.2.5 Selection .................................................................................................................................. 29 2.3 THE OVERALL ALGORITHM ............................................................................................................... 31 2.4 IMPLEMENTATION .............................................................................................................................. 33 2.4.1 The class Bar ........................................................................................................................... 35 2.4.2 The class Tune ......................................................................................................................... 35 2.4.3 The class Pop........................................................................................................................... 36 2.4.4 The class GA............................................................................................................................ 36 2.5 VALIDATION ...................................................................................................................................... 37 2.6 VERIFICATION .................................................................................................................................... 37 2.6.1 Module Testing ........................................................................................................................ 37 2.6.2 Bar Store Array ....................................................................................................................... 37 2.6.3 Cross-checking for Errors ....................................................................................................... 38 2.6.4 Errors Checklist....................................................................................................................... 38 2.6.5 Structural Testing .................................................................................................................... 38 2.7 INTERFACING WITH SOUND ................................................................................................................ 38 2.8 GRAPH PLOTTING SOFTWARE ............................................................................................................ 39 CHAPTER 3 - EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN AND RESULTS.................................................................. 40 3.1 EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN ..................................................................................................................... 41 3.1.1 Choosing Initial Fitness Function Weights ............................................................................ 41 3.1.2 Choosing Initial Population Size ............................................................................................. 41 3.1.3 Choosing Initial Mutation Rate ............................................................................................... 41 3.1.4 Choosing Total Number of Generations.................................................................................. 41 3.2 INVESTIGATING EFFECT OF VARYING FITNESS FUNCTION WEIGHTS ................................................. 42 3.2.1 Plot of Mean Fitness................................................................................................................ 42 3.2.2 Plot of Maximum and Minimum Fitnesses and Standard Deviation ....................................... 49 3.3 INVESTIGATING EFFECT OF VARYING STANDARD GA PARAMETERS................................................. 63 3.3.1 Varying Mutation Rates........................................................................................................... 63 3.3.2 Varying Population Size .......................................................................................................... 63
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3.3.3 Results ..................................................................................................................................... 65 3.3.4 Discussion of these Results...................................................................................................... 70 3.4 EXAMINATION OF TUNES OF MAXIMUM FITNESS............................................................................... 71 3.5 LISTENING TO THE MUSIC PRODUCED................................................................................................ 72 CHAPTER 4 - CONCLUSIONS AND POSSIBILITIES FOR FUTURE WORK.................................. 73 4.1 4.2 4.3 CONCLUSIONS .................................................................................................................................... 73 POSSIBILITIES FOR FUTURE WORK .................................................................................................... 74 SUMMARY.......................................................................................................................................... 76
REFERENCES .............................................................................................................................................. 77 BIBLIOGRAPHY ......................................................................................................................................... 82 APPENDICES ............................................................................................................................................... 83 APPENDIX 1 APPENDIX 2 CONTENTS OF CD ............................................................................................................... 84 SOURCE CODE .................................................................................................................... 85
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TABLE OF FIGURES
Fig. 1 Fig. 2 Fig. 3 Fig. 4 Fig. 5 Fig. 6 Fig. 7 Fig. 8 Fig. 9 Fig. 10 Fig. 11 Fig. 12 Fig. 13 Fig. 14 Fig. 15 Fig. 16 Fig. 17 Fig. 18 Fig. 19 Fig. 20 Fig. 21 Fig. 22 Fig. 23 Fig. 24 Fig. 25 Fig. 26 Fig. 27 Fig. 28 Fig. 29 Fig. 30 Fig. 31 Fig. 32 Fig. 33 Fig. 34 Fig. 35 Fig. 36 Fig. 37 Fig. 38 Fig. 39 Fig. 40 Fig. 41 Fig. 42 Fig. 43 Fig. 44 Fig. 45 Fig. 46 2 octaves of a piano keyboard ...............................................................................10 Relationships between different note durations ....................................................11 A Typical GA ........................................................................................................17 Two Point Crossover .............................................................................................19 Mutation ................................................................................................................19 Chunk Crossover ...................................................................................................27 Genetic Algorithm for Music Composition...........................................................32 UML class diagram for the program .....................................................................34 Varying AVERAGE_LENGTH_WEIGHT ..........................................................43 Varying CONSECUTIVE_LENGTH_WEIGHT................................................43 Varying FINAL_PITCH_WEIGHT ....................................................................44 Varying FIRST_PITCH_WEIGHT.....................................................................44 Varying FINAL_LENGTH_WEIGHT ...............................................................45 Varying NOTES_BEGIN_WEIGHT_1 ..............................................................45 Varying NOTES_BEGIN_WEIGHT_2 ..............................................................46 Varying NOTES_BEGIN_WEIGHT_4 ..............................................................46 Varying TRANSITION_WEIGHT .....................................................................47 Comparing Mean Fitness using Different Weights .............................................47 GA with normalised weight values .....................................................................50 Increasing AVERAGE_LENGTH_WEIGHT.....................................................51 Decreasing AVERAGE_LENGTH_WEIGHT ...................................................51 Increasing CONSECUTIVE_LENGTHS_WEIGHT..........................................52 Decreasing CONSECUTIVE_LENGTHS_WEIGHT .......................................52 Increasing FINAL_PITCH_WEIGHT ................................................................53 Decreasing FINAL_PITCH_WEIGHT ...............................................................53 Increasing FINAL_LENGTH_WEIGHT ............................................................54 Decreasing FINAL_LENGTH_WEIGHT...........................................................54 Increasing FIRST_PITCH_WEIGHT .................................................................55 Decreasing FIRST_PITCH_WEIGHT ................................................................55 Increasing NOTES_BEGIN_WEIGHT_1..........................................................56 Decreasing NOTES_BEGIN_WEIGHT_1 .........................................................56 Increasing NOTES_BEGIN_WEIGHT_2...........................................................57 Decreasing NOTES_BEGIN_WEIGHT_2 .........................................................57 Increasing NOTES_BEGIN_WEIGHT_4..........................................................58 Decreasing NOTES_BEGIN_WEIGHT_4 ........................................................58 Increasing TRANSITION_WEIGHT.................................................................59 Decreasing TRANSITION_WEIGHT ..............................................................59 Comparing Minimum Fitness using Different Weights ......................................60 Comparing Maximum Fitness using Different Weights......................................60 Table Showing Different Settings of Mutation Rate and Population Size..........64 MUT_RATE_1 high, MUT_RATE_2 high, POP_SIZE high ............................65 MUT_RATE_1 high, MUT_RATE_2 high, POP_SIZE low .............................65 MUT_RATE_1 high, MUT_RATE_2 low, POP_SIZE high .............................66 MUT_RATE_1 high, MUT_RATE_2 low, POP_SIZE low...............................66 MUT_RATE_1 low, MUT_RATE_2 high, POP_SIZE high .............................67 MUT_RATE_1 low, MUT_RATE_2 high, POP_SIZE low...............................67
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Fig. 47 Fig. 48 Fig. 49
MUT_RATE_1 low, MUT_RATE_2 low, POP_SIZE high...............................68 MUT_RATE_1 low, MUT_RATE_2 low, POP_SIZE low................................68 Varying Mutation Rates and Population Size .....................................................69
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ABSTRACT
The aim of the project was to learn Java then write a program in this language to implement a Genetic Algorithm with an automated objective fitness function for music composition, then to investigate the effect of varying parameter values on the overall fitness of the melodies produced. The basic GA was implemented successfully and found able to improve the fitness of random melodies over many generations. However, after these first generations, the fitness of the best individual in almost all trials remained at the same value for the remaining generations. This was found to be due in each trial to the increasing abundance over the generations of a small number of bars which made a large contribution to tune fitness and rendered the standard GA operators ineffective.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Id like to thank my supervisor, Nick Taylor, for his guidance and patience; Steve Salvini, problem manager, for technical advice; and my fellow students Craig Douglas, Panos Chorianopoulos, Kirsteen McInnes and Jennifer Low for helpful comments.
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CHAPTER 1 - INTRODUCTION
Algorithmic music composition is an area of work with a long history and many different techniques and approaches. Since 1991 there have been various attempts to compose music using Genetic Algorithms (GAs), a process modelled on the biological process of evolution. This project aimed to add to the current body of knowledge of GAs and music by implementing a GA in Java to compose melodies, and experimenting with different values of the GA parameters.
A common AI technique for problem-solving is to consider the problem as a search problem. The goal is to explore the entire set of possible solutions to find one that satisfies the original criteria; it is important to structure this set of possible solutions so that one does not have to examine each solution, allowing the completion of the search in a finite period of time. The GA is one technique used to solve a search problem.
Some basic music theory is described in section 1.1, followed by an introduction to algorithmic composition in section 1.2. Genetic Algorithms are explained in Section 1.3, and the application of Genetic Algorithms to music composition is outlined in section 1.4.
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1.1 Some Music Theory

A melody has been defined as a sweet or agreeable succession or arrangement of sounds, or a rhythmic succession of single tones organized as an aesthetic whole [MerriamWebster, 2001]. For our purposes, we can consider a melody to be a sequence of notes. The primary attributes of these notes are pitch and duration.
1.1.1 Pitch Pitch can be defined as the property of a sound and especially a musical tone that is determined by the frequency of the waves producing it : highness or lowness of sound [Merriam-Webster, 2001]. A notes frequency is the number of wave cycles per second (Hz) which characterises the note. In western music, the interval between a note of frequency (or pitch) f and a note of frequency 2f is known as the octave. We divide this interval into twelve pitch steps or semitones, where the ratio between one semitone and the next higher one is around 1:21/12. We assign the same letter to a pitch and the pitch an octave higher. For example, the note that an orchestra usually tunes to (the A above middle C) has a frequency of 440 cycles per second, and the note with double this frequency (880Hz) is also called A. This can be seen in fig. 1, which displays two octaves of a piano keyboard.
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Fig. 1
2 octaves of a piano keyboard
Db
or
Eb
or
Gb
or
Ab
or
Bb
or
Db
or
Eb
or
Gb
or
Ab
or
Bb
or
C#
C# #
D# # D#
F# E F G
G# A
A# B
C# C
D# D E F
F#
G# A# G A
880 Hz
C Db Db
##
440 Hz
Increasing frequency
Db
Of the twelve semitones, seven (the degrees)orplay a central role in a particular mode or key. These seven can be represented in a key-independent form as doh, re, mi, fah, soh, lah and ti. For example, the scale of C major begins on C and includes the notes D, E, F, G, A, B, and terminates on the next C (doh again). The first note of the scale, doh, is also known as the tonic note and is the most important note in the scale or key. The less important notes in a key are known as the chromatic notes in this case C#, D#, F#, G# and A#. A chord is defined as three or more musical tones played simultaneously [MerriamWebster, 2001]. The most important chord in a piece of music is the tonic triad, consisting of the tonic note, the mediant (mi or the third note of the scale) and the dominant (soh or the fifth note). This is often the first and last chord of the piece.
1.1.2 Rhythm Rhythm is a pattern of durations. Some common durations used in western music are the semibreve, minim, crotchet, quaver and semi-quaver. In terms of length, 1 semibreve = 2 minims = 4 crotchets = 8 quavers = 16 semi-quavers (see fig. 2). A note can have length equal to any combination of these durations, and it should be remembered that these are relative durations only that is, there is no universal standard for the length of, say, a crotchet in seconds.
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Fig. 2
Relationships between different note durations
1 semibreve
2 minims
4 crotchets
8 quavers
16 semi-quavers
Music is often divided up into units called measures or bars. Each measure contains a certain number of beats, and the number of beats is determined by the time signature or meter. For example, some music is written as
3 4
. The top number ( 3 ) represents the
number of beats per bar and the bottom number tells us what value of note we assign as the duration of each beat, in this case the crotchet ( 4 ). Phrases are sequences of bars, and what we recognise as tunes or melodies are generally sequences of phrases.
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1.2 Algorithmic Music Composition

The first musical instruments which have been identified as such are 32 000 year-old bone flutes found in caves in France dating from 34 000 BC [Lander], so we know man has been making music for a very long time indeed. For thousands of years he has been attempting to define the rules that govern music and to understand what is meant by good music.
Pythagoras investigated the connections between mathematics and music 2500 years ago, discovering the mathematical relationship represented by harmonic intervals such as the fourth, the fifth and the octave by observing different lengths of string being plucked. In 1026, Guido d'Arrezzo suggested a scheme that assigned pitches to each vowel sound in a religious text, pioneering formal techniques for melody composition. The Austrian composer Mozart (18th century) threw dice to determine the order in which he placed phrases in his compositions.
The use of computers to compose music began in the mid-1950s. With a computer, it is possible to preview and test the musical capabilities of many different algorithmic types and judge whether they have the potential to be developed into fully-fledged composition systems. The earliest composition programs were often driven by stochastic (random) processes. Hiller's 1956 work, The Illiac Suite for String Quartet, is recognized as being the very first computer-composed composition he used random generators and Markov Chains, a technique for making decisions on the basis of probability [Papadopoulos & Wiggins, 1999].
The advent of affordable and powerful computing resources has meant that algorithmic composition is no longer the exclusive province of the professional composer or computer scientist - more and more people have been able to realize their composition algorithms from their PC's. Also, interactive algorithmic music composition software, for example jMusic at Queensland University of Technology [Sorensen & Brown], has been developed, enabling novices to create their own compositions.
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1.2.1
The Composition of Music
The composition of music can be considered from an AI viewpoint as a search problem: consider the set of all possible compositions as the solution space, and try to solve the problem of finding a composition that sounds good. Unfortunately, the solution space is unstructured; good solutions may be adjacent to extremely poor ones : if just a few notes in a piece of music are changed, it may become far less tuneful, though it may be almost identical from a low-level perspective.
When simulating human music composition, all AI systems must resolve the trade-off between novelty and structure. This can be seen as from an artistic point of view as the tension between creativity and aesthetic and technical constraints; or from an AI point of view as the trade-off between the ability to search a large space of potential solutions, and the constraints and bias dictated by the need for an efficient search.
Although most computer-generated music composition involves elements of an AI approach, three distinct categories based on AI techniques have been identified [Todd & Werner, 1999] rule-based systems, systems which learn by trial and example and evolutionary algorithms.
1.2.2
Rule-Based Systems
Rule-based systems for music composition have a history stretching back to Mozart's dice. The advantage of such systems is that their encoded knowledge is explicit, so they behave in a predictable way. However, the problem with attempting to define human performance with rules is that there are exceptions to these rules and exceptions to the exceptions, an example being the lack of a complete and consistent set of rules for counterpoint and voice leading [Towsey et al., 2001]. Rule-based systems approach the problem from the structure side of the trade-off they do not always incorporate novelty. A common contemporary approach in this category is expert systems [Yu, 1996][Cope, 1997].
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1.2.3
Learning Systems
When trained on melodic sequences, learning systems acquire statistical knowledge about local structure - that is, given a sequence of four or five notes the system is able to predict the probability of each candidate for the next note. The advantage of these systems is that they can produce tuneful sequences on a short time scale. However, since they do not learn large scale structure, their melodies tend to show little sense of direction.
Learning systems often include Markov models [Loy, 1991] and neural networks ( eg the CONCERT software [Mozer, 1994] ). The EMI and CUE software [Cope, 1997] implements a hierarchy of Markov models in an attempt to rectify the lack of large-scale structure. Learning systems lie at the centre of the trade-off they can generalise to novel situations on the basis of their acquired statistical knowledge.
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1.3 Genetic Algorithms

The search method we consider here is the Genetic Algorithm. An algorithm is a sequence of steps designed to solve a specific problem if the steps are clearly enough defined they can be executed by a computer program. Genetic Algorithms are based on the concept of evolution adaptation through crossover and mutation over many generations. Computational approaches based on evolution were first explored in the 1950s.
In nature, the evolutionary process takes place when the following conditions are satisfied [Koza, 1992] :
1. An organism has the ability to reproduce itself. 2. There is a population of such self-reproducing organisms. 3. Variety exists among these organisms. 4. The variety is linked to a difference in ability to survive in the environment.
In nature, variety is shown in the differences between the chromosomes of the organisms of a particular population. This variety is associated with differences in the organisms structure and behaviour and so also with a variation in their survival and reproduction rates. Thus organisms with a structure and behaviour more conducive to success in their environment will survive and reproduce more than others in the population the concept of natural selection and survival of the fittest introduced by Charles Darwin in his book The Origin of Species. Over many generations, the population will come to contain progressively fitter individuals whose structure will be different from those in the initial population we may say that the population has evolved.
Chromosomes, the primary identifiers of a biological individual, are strings of characters written in a four-letter alphabet, the letters being nucleotide bases denoted by A, C, G and T, which appear along the length of each DNA molecule. DNA molecules are capable of self-reproduction, and they govern the structure and behaviour of biological cells, which in turn govern the fitness of an individual. The chromosomes of offspring contain strings of these bases from their parent(s), so the strings which lead to greater success in the environment are passed on to future generations at higher rates. Mutation may also take
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place in the chromosomes during the reproduction (we can think of this as representing errors in copying) and this provides still more potential for variety in the DNA.
Genetic Algorithms were proposed by John Holland in the 1960s and explained in his book Adaptation in Natural and Artificial Systems [Holland, 1975] he realised that any problem based on adaptation could be expressed in genetic terms and investigated using such an algorithm.
We can define a Genetic Algorithm as a parallel mathematical process which transforms a set of mathematical objects, each with an associated fitness value, into a new set (the next generations population) using operations modelled on reproduction, mutation and survival of the fittest. A GA searches the space of all possible strings to find high-fitness strings, guided only by the numerical fitness values. It is a domain-independent way of rapidly searching an unknown space for points of high fitness. The technique is particularly wellsuited to solving problems where the nature of the solution domain is difficult to understand or there is no obvious way to judge the solutions effectively. Genetic Programming (GP), first proposed by Koza [Koza, 1992], is a form of evolutionary computation in which the individuals (chromosomes) in the population are computer programs themselves, and the genes are blocks of this program code.
Genetic Algorithms have wide-ranging applications, ranging from exam timetabling [Corne et al., 1993] to creating visual art [Sims, 1993].
A GA consists of the following components:
1. A representation for chromosomes or hypotheses, potential solutions to the problem considered. 2. An initial population of these chromosomes. 3. A set of operators which serve to generate new candidate hypotheses from chromosomes in the population, and information as to when these operators should be applied. 4. 5. An evaluation function to assess the fitness or quality of a hypothesis. A selection method which gives good solutions a better chance of survival.
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Fig. 3
A Typical GA
Initialise population generate p hypotheses at random
Evaluate for each hypothesis calculate fitness.
Yes Is termination condition true? No No Is this first generation? Yes Select some fraction of the hypotheses from current population Finish
Create new population select hypotheses from previous generations pool
Increase generation number by 1
Cross over pairs of these hypotheses with each other to generate children
Mutate some fraction of the child hypotheses by applying the mutation operator
Evaluate all child hypotheses
Add all child hypotheses to population , creating temporary pool
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An initial set of hypotheses, possible solutions consisting of a string of genes (a gene is our basic building block, and particular values of genes are known as alleles) is created at random. At this and each subsequent generation, the hypotheses are evaluated for their fitness, and the fittest hypotheses are selected probabilistically and used to produce offspring hypotheses using operations such as crossover and mutation. The offspring hypotheses are added to the current population to create a temporary pool, then the next generations population is produced by selecting the required number of hypotheses from this temporary pool.
1.3.1
Considerations
1.3.1.1 Representation There exist many ways of encoding the chromosomes in a form that the GA can manipulate, for example a string of binary digits or a logical expression. The method chosen will depend on the problem being considered.
1.3.1.2 Population We must consider: 1. Population size large populations have a larger and possibly more diverse number of candidate hypotheses, but they will take longer to evaluate. Within a given run of a GA, the population size tends to be fixed.
2. Method of updating population from one generation to the next there are two common approaches here - steady-state, where a maximum of only a few
hypotheses (often only one) are replaced at each generation, and generational, where any number of hypotheses up to all those in the population may be replaced at each generation [Drakos et al., 1996]. The word may is used because one possibility for both steady-state and generational GAs is that the selection process at a particular generation may lead to all the individuals in the old population surviving to the next one.
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1.3.1.3 1.3.1.3.1
Operators Crossover
The crossover operator implements an exchange of information between two, or possibly more, chromosomes in a population. This can be illustrated by a common operator for binary strings two-point crossover which picks two points at random along the strings and exchanges the digits in the strings between these two points to produce children eg. Fig. 4 Two Point Crossover Crossover -------------> 0 01 1 1 10 0 1 10 0 0 01 1
0 00 0 0 00 0 1 11 1 1 11 1
Crossover is useful because it can bring together portions of separate strings associated with high fitness, creating even fitter children, and conversely bring together poorer portions so that they can be purged from the population.
1.3.1.3.2
Mutation
The mutation operator randomly changes part of a chromosome. For the example of a binary string, one or more bits are simply flipped:
Fig. 5
Mutation Mutation 00000000 -------------> 00000100
Holland emphasised a low mutation rate, and early GA research tended to view mutation as not being particularly important. However, the fact that mutation-only optimisation techniques can obtain significant results has convinced many scientists today that mutation is in fact an important operator [Wiggins et al., 1999]
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1.3.1.4
Evaluation
Use a function to measure the quality of a hypothesis. This function may be difficult to define, especially where multiple fitness measures have to be assigned different weights in order to be combined into an overall function. GAs which use subjective human opinion instead of an objective fitness function are known as Interactive Genetic Algorithms (IGAs).
1.3.1.5
Selection
How should we select hypotheses for breeding and for survival into the next generation? Common methods for selection include fitness proportionate selection or roulette wheel selection, where the probability that a hypothesis is selected is equal to the ratio of its fitness to that of other competing hypotheses in the same generation; tournament selection, where pairs of hypotheses are chosen at random from the current population, and the fittest is selected - this may lead to more diversity in the population than the use of roulette wheel selection; and rank selection, where each hypothesis in the population is allocated a rank representing its position in the order of hypotheses' fitnesses, then selected with a probability proportional to this rank.
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1.4
Genetic Algorithms and Music Composition
GA's are well-suited to the task of musical composition because they combine the ability to explore a large search space (creativity - the mutation and crossover operators) with constraints or structure (a fitness function) explicitly built into the algorithm. The designer is able to manipulate the balance between these two. The success of the GA approach depends on imposing appropriate constraints on the search, and in particular on devising a fitness function which measures the aesthetic worth of a melody. Most attempts have used very simple representations to try to reduce the space to be searched this has compromised the quality of the solutions found. Compositional GA's have been attempted with both types of fitness function - with an automated fitness function and with a human critic supplying the evaluation (interactive GA). Both approaches present problems it is difficult to define musical fitness objectively and hence difficult to design an automated fitness function; a human critic must listen to a huge number of tunes, possibly thousands, over the course of many generations, the great majority of which will not be tuneful this can be exhausting and it is likely that the subjects critical faculty will be temporarily numbed by over-exposure.
1.4.1
Automated Fitness Function
The first published record of the use of GA's for music composition used an automated fitness function and investigated thematic bridging between very simple melodies [Horner and Goldberg, 1991]. McIntyre [1994] used GAs to generate four-part harmony for an input melody.
Spector and Alpern [1994] used Genetic Programming to evolve programs which return a melody as an output when one is inputted. Papadopoulos & Wiggins [1998] used a GA to evolve jazz melodies on a given chord progression, their genes being note pitches relative to the current chord. They report that the success of a GA depends on the amount of
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knowledge supplied to the system, and that it can be difficult to impart this knowledge successfully to the system because GAs do not simulate human behaviour.
Shamblen [1999] used a GA for the rhythm of two lines of a pop melody and another for the underlying chord progression. The results of these were used as input fitness parameters for a third GA, which composed the notes of the melody. He described his results as fair but with an aimless meandering quality.
Milkie and Chestnutt [2000] designed a GA to create fugues, pieces of music with a recurring melody or subject, with an automated fitness function. The program was able to generate subjects successfully, but unable to create complete fugues.
Towsey et al [2001] used their GA to explore melodic extension. They aimed to use their system as a teaching tool to provide a critique of and suggest an extension to a melody composed by a student, using a statistical analysis of a library of existing melodies to define fitness function parameters
1.4.2 Human Fitness Function Biles [1994] used GenJam, an interactive GA incorporating a learning system, to produce jazz solos over a given chord progression, using the metaphor of a novice jazz student. He described his results as competent with some nice moments.
Jacob [1995] devised a composing system, Variations, which dealt with the high-level structures of phrases and motives. Motives were input by a human subject, then variations on these were composed by his Composer module fed to his Ear module, which had been trained by the human subject, for evaluation.
Burton & Vladimirova [1997] examined the performance of an interactive GA along with a neural network fitness evaluation to compose rhythms. Horowitz [1994] describes a genetic algorithm for creating interesting rhythms he succeeded in generating tasteful patterns.
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Johanson & Poli [1998] experimented with Genetic Programming to evolve pieces of music. With a human critic, they reported the emergence of pleasant melodies over runs of 20 individuals over 10 generations, but with a neural-network based automated rater, despite using bigger population sizes and greater numbers of generations, they recorded poorer results.
Tokui & Iba [2000] combined a GA with Genetic Programming to generate rhythms. Their GA individuals represented short pieces of rhythmic patterns, and their GP individuals expressed how these patterns were arranged in terms of their functions.
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CHAPTER 2 DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF PROGRAM
2.1 Requirements
It was considered likely that the only users of this system would be the programmer himself and possible future students who may want to take the work a step further, so the requirements were easily stated: a program was required which would implement a Genetic Algorithm with an automated objective fitness function for music composition and enable the investigation of the effect of varying parameter values on the overall fitness of the melodies produced.
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2.2 Design of the Algorithm

The important design issues were the choice of mode of representation for the chromosomes and genes, the initial population of chromosomes, the operators, the evaluation function and the selection method.
2.2.1 Representation I had to consider how to encode chromosomes (hypotheses or individuals) and their basic building blocks, genes.
2.2.1.1 Chromosomes GAs have worked with melodies, rhythm patterns, chord progressions and harmonic lines as their chromosomes. It was decided to use the melody as the chromosome here.
2.2.1.2 Genes GPs tend to use functions performed on notes or sequences of notes [Johanson & Poli, 1998] for their genes. Musical GAs have used individual notes [Milkie & Chestnutt, 2001] as genes, but because notes have different durations, this means that each chromosome can have a different length this makes comparison of the chromosomes more difficult.. Longer phrases (a phrase contains several bars) have also been used as genes [Biles, 1994] Jacob [1995]. Shamblen [1999] used bars as his genes for each of his GA's.
If we consider only tunes throughout which the time signature is constant, and this is true for the vast majority of tunes, then all the bars contain the same number of beats they are of the same length. It seems convenient then to use the bar as the basic building block - this means that all our genes will be of the same length. This has obvious advantages for continuity and ease of comparison, not least since replacing one bar with another at crossover will not alter the length of a tune.
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In the interests of simplicity, this project will deal only with pieces of music in
time
this is often known as "common" time and is indeed the most common time signature for all types of music. In such pieces there are 4 beats in each bar, each represented by a crotchet. It was decided that the semibreve should be the maximum possible duration and the semi-quaver the minimum duration unit, so the length of each bar is 1 semibreve or 16 semi-quavers.
The project will deal with one octave of a major scale including both tonic notes the eight note pitches which constitute the scale (the degrees of the scale) can thus be represented simply by the numbers 0 to 7.
2.2.2 Population
It was considered simplest to use a population of fixed size. Since a generational GA progresses more quickly and so saves on computer time, this approach was considered most appropriate for the present project.
2.2.3 Operators The two operators which must be considered are those for crossover and mutation.
2.2.3.1 Crossover It was decided to use chunk crossover with constant chunk size, as it was felt that this would encourage more variety in the chromosomes than would simple crossover using fixed cross points. A bar P in the first parent tune is chosen at random (providing it is not too close to the end of the tune) and bars from the beginning of the first parent tune until the bar before P are copied to the child. A bar Q in the second parent tune is chosen at random, and a chunk of bars of the aforementioned constant size from Q onwards is copied from the second parent tune into bars P onwards of the child. From the child tune's next bar until the end of the tune, bars are copied from the corresponding positions in the first tune:
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Say P = 2 and Q = 4, with a chunk size of 3 Fig. 6 Chunk Crossover
X0 X1 X2 X3 X4 X5 X6 X7
Y0 Y1 Y2 Y3 Y4 Y5 Y6 Y7
X0 X1 Y4 Y5 Y6 X5 X6 X7
2.2.3.2 Mutation A two level mutation system will be used: 2 mutation rate constants, numbers between 0 and 1, will be used as probabilities for mutation.
First of all, it will be determined whether to allow mutation in this generation by generating a random number between 0 and 1 and comparing this random number to the first mutation rate constant m. If the random number is greater than m, mutation will be permitted in this generation. m is thus the probability of any mutation being allowed in a given generation.
If mutation is to be allowed in the generation, then for each tune we generate a second random number and compare this to a second mutation rate constant n. If the random number is greater than n, we will mutate the tune by removing one of its bars (chosen at random) and replacing this with another bar, newly created and randomly filled with notes. n is thus the probability of mutation for any tune within a generation where mutation is allowed.
It can be shown simply that the probability of mutation for a tune in the GA can be calculated by multiplying these two mutation rates together (m*n).
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2.2.4 Evaluation The use of human versus automated fitness functions was discussed earlier. It was decided for this project to use an automated function this would of course be more difficult to code, but would mean that the program could proceed more independently. The fitness function would be a weighted sum of many distinct characteristics of a tune. It was decided to include the following parameters:
1. Number and size of unwanted pitch transitions. To discourage the melody from leaping around too much in pitch, all transitions between notes of more than a constant number of tones are penalised by a number proportional to the size of the transition minus this constant number.
2. Number of consecutive length pairs the number of consecutive pairs of notes of identical length in the tune. Milkie and Chestnutt [2001] included this parameter and suggested that the melody would flow better if there were more such pairs.
3. Number of notes beginning at certain points in the bar. Papadopoulos & Wiggins[1998] rewarded notes which begin on points which would normally be emphasised, for instance the beginning of each half bar. With a
4 4
melody, the
half bars begin at beats 1 and 3. This project extends this idea to reward notes which begin at each quarter bar and each eighth bar also. This encourages consistency of rhythm.
4. Length of final note. Shamblen[1999] pointed out that melodies sound better when they end on a long note. This seems to resolve the melody better.
5. Pitch status of final note. Shamblen [1999] also reasoned that melodies which end on the tonic note resolve more satisfactorily than those which do not. Our fitness function will reward the former.
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6. Pitch status of first note. The first chord of a tune is generally the tonic triad, so it seems to make sense to reward first note pitches which are member pitches of this chord ie the first, third and fifth notes of the scale.
7. Average note length a number of the parameters introduced above are likely to encourage a large density of notes (eg. Number of notes beginning at certain points in the bar, number of consecutive length pairs). It was reasoned that this fact might lead to the melodies being difficult to listen to seeming too cluttered with notes. If we reward long notes, then we should be able to redress this balance. This parameter may also be useful for giving us an idea of the speed of a piece of music. Speed can be considered proportional to note density, and note density is proportional to the inverse of average note length, given constant tune length in notes.
It is clear that the above parameters are not completely independent of each other. For example, if the average note length is greater than 1, this obviously sets an upper limit on the possible values for the number of consecutive length pairs. This number cannot in this case be greater than the number of notes in the tune divided by (average note length minus 1).
There were many other candidates for inclusion in the list of fitness parameters for example, Yu [1996] rewarded notes of certain pitches whenever they occurred in the tune, and Shamblen [1999] gave extra points to bars with similar rhythms, in an attempt to encourage repetition. However, it was decided that coding functions to implement the above nine parameters would represent a sufficient initial challenge.
2.2.5 Selection It was considered that roulette wheel selection would drain too much computation time, requiring as it does the calculation of the fitness of each individual proportional to the mean fitness of the population, so it was decided to operate using other selection methods:
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To select the parent tunes for crossover, tournament selection is used (see earlier). This method has the advantages of encouraging more diversity than would roulette-wheel selection and guaranteeing that the individual of lowest fitness in the population simply will not be selected.
To select the chromosomes from the temporary pool for inclusion in the next generation's population, a method combining features of rank selection and roulette wheel selection is used the fitness of each chromosome is multiplied by a random number to give a rank score, and the rank is simply the order of these rank scores. The chromosomes with highest rank are selected, so a tunes probability of survival is proportional to its fitness, but no single tune is absolutely certain to survive to the next generation. This again encourages more diversity and involves less computation than simple roulette-wheel selection, and is easier to code than standard rank selection.
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2.3 The Overall Algorithm

Fig. 7 describes the exact algorithm used
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Fig. 7
Genetic Algorithm for Music Composition
Initialise population create array of tunes by filling them with bars generated at random
Evaluate for each tune in population, calculate fitness.
Is generation number still within range?
No Finish
Yes No Is this first generation? Yes Create new population - select tunes from previous generations combined array using rank selection
Increase generation number by 1
Select some fraction of the tunes from current population, using tournament selection
Generate child tunes - cross over pairs of these tunes using chunk crossover
If there is to be mutation in this generation, mutate some fraction of the tunes by replacing one of the bars in each one with a new bar generated at random
Evaluate all child tunes
Add all child tunes to population, creating temporary pool or combined array
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2.4 Implementation
The programming language chosen was Java, because its object-oriented properties (in particular encapsulation and aggregation) promised to provide elegant coding of the various evolutionary entities which needed to be described, because of its platform independence useful if the project is to be further explored by another student, and because expertise in this language is a skill much in demand in todays IT job market. The program was coded on Linux machines using Java version 2.0, Java Development Kit version 1.2.2.
Java classes were used to represent bars, tunes, populations and the GA itself. The relationships between these classes constitute a hierarchy of aggregations, as shown in fig. 8. An aggregation describes the relationship when an object of one class contains a reference to an object of another class, and the objects lifetimes are not tied. For example, an object representing population contains references to many objects representing tunes, but although the population object is destroyed when the new generations population is created, the tunes may survive.
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Fig. 8
UML class diagram for the program

GA genNo meanFit[ ] stanDev[ ] popArray[ ] : rankTunes( ) sortTunesRank( ) :
make up
contains MAX_NO_GENERATIONS
Pop pCombinedArray[ ] pTuneArray[ ] pXedTunes[ ] : combineArrays( ) pMut( ) xOver( ) :
make up
contains
POP_SIZE Tune barArray[ ] rank : tMut() xOver() evaluate() averageNoteLength( ) tFirstNoteStatus( ) tFinalNoteStatus( ) tFinalNoteLength( ) :
make up
contains TUNE_LENGTH
Bar notesInBar noteLength[ ] notePitch[ ] transition[ ] : bFirstNoteStatus( ) bFinalNoteStatus( ) bFinalNoteLength( ) :
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2.4.1 The class Bar The most important fields in the class Bar are the integer arrays noteLength, notePitch and transition. These arrays allow us to describe conveniently and completely a bar in terms of its constituent notes, their pitch and duration, and the pitch differences between successive notes. The important methods, aside from the constructor, are those which will help us to calculate the values of the fitness parameters for a tune, for example bFirstNoteStatus( ) and bNotesBegin ( ).
It was decided that the length of every note in a bar would be equal to 1 or some power notePower (generated at random within a certain range) of 2 multiplied by a constant called NOTE_UNIT, here fixed throughout all trials to 2. This meant that our possible note lengths were 1, 2, 4, 8 and 16 semi-quavers. However, this approach had to be modified when looking at the notes where the notePower generated corresponded to a noteLength which would be too great and would extend the note beyond the end of the bar. To legislate for this, extra code was written which looked at the number of semi-quavers left in the bar and determined how to divide it into noteLengths which were powers of 2.
2.4.2 The class Tune A Tune object contains an array of bars, and functions for mutation, crossover and evaluation. The Tune methods for fitness parameter evaluation tend to be derived from the equivalent methods in the constituent Bar objects, for example the tNotesBegin( ) method in Tune simply sums the values returned by the bNotesBegin( ) methods from all the Bar objects representing bars in the tune. However, for some of the fitness parameters, we have to examine the boundaries between bars also, for example tLengthPairs( ), which returns the number of pairs of consecutive notes of the same length, is not only a sum of all the values returned by bLengthPairs( ), but must also include those pairs of notes of consecutive length which contain the first note of one bar and the last note of the preceding bar.
Also worth mentioning is the treatment of the parameter which penalised unwanted pitch transitions between consecutive notes. If we subtracted fitness points from tunes which had
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unwanted transitions, we could end up with tunes with negative overall fitness functions. This would lead to complications when it came to selection for survival into the next generation, because the rank score assigned to each tune is equal to its fitness multiplied by a random number between 0 and 1. If a tunes fitness was negative, then it could not possibly end up with a positive rank score, and so would have no chance of being selected if competing against other tunes with positive fitness. This violates our intention that every tune should have a chance, however slim, of being selected for the next generation.
With this in mind, it was decided to use two methods to deal with the transition score. The first, tTransitionPen( ), recommends how much we should penalise a tune by if it includes unwanted transitions, and the second, tTransitionScore( ), subtracts the value returned by tTransitionPen( ) from some constant value. We use the value returned by
tTransitionScore( ) as our fitness parameter value, and set a lower limit of zero on it. This solves the problem, because it means that tune fitness can never be negative.
2.4.3 The class Pop A Pop object represents a population and has as its fields arrays of the tunes which are fully-fledged members of the population, the crossed over tunes, and the combined pool of all tunes. The most important methods are the constructors (one for creating the initial population, another for updating by selecting certain tunes from the previous generations population) those for crossover, mutation and combining the arrays of tunes.
2.4.4 The class GA GA is our public class; there is only one GA object in the program. Its significant fields are the generation number, and the arrays containing the population, standard deviation and mean fitness for each generation, which allow us to trace the performance of the GA. The most important methods are those for ranking the tunes and sorting them according to their rank.
Also important in the GA class are the constants, which enable us to change values for the important parameters from one trial to the next.
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2.5 Validation
Validation is the process of ensuring that the software is traceable to user requirements are we building the right product?. The results presented later in this report indicate that the requirements have been fulfilled satisfactorily.
2.6 Verification
The paragraphs below describe some attempts to confirm that we were building the product right
2.6.1 Module Testing Separate main programs were written to investigate the performance of the classes Bar, Tune and Pop, as well as the public class GA, exploiting Javas property of encapsulation. Loops and if statements were tested individually using different categories of input, then the various methods of each class were tested in a similar fashion. Display functions for the classes Bar, Tune and Pop were used to print data to the screen and System.out.println (print) statements were used at strategic points throughout the code to check that it was functioning as required.
2.6.2 Bar Store Array When the program was in an early stage of development, to facilitate easier tracking of the bars within the population, some constant number of bars were initially created and used to fill a bar store array, a field of the GA object. No bars were created after this point, which meant that the bar store array held all the bars which would be used in the GA. The GA proceeded exactly as the final version would proceed later, except that the mutation method swapped a bar in a tune with one chosen at random from the bar store array, instead of one newly created at random. Each bar was defined uniquely by an index in the bar store array, and this meant that we could see more easily the distribution of bars in tunes and populations in general. Checking that the methods of the various classes were performing as required was thus made significantly easier. It was reasoned, however, that
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use of such a bar store array would lead to too little diversity in the population to merit its inclusion in the final version of the program
2.6.3 Cross-checking for Errors Where possible, if a calculation in the program could be performed equally well in another way, the second way was attempted as well. This meant that the two results could be compared if they disagreed, there was obviously a problem and the code would have to be looked at more thoroughly.
2.6.4 Errors Checklist A checklist of likely errors was drawn up, two major candidates being the inclusion of '=' (assignment) instead of '= = ' (test) in an if condition, and the failure to terminate all loops.
2.6.5 Structural Testing Structural testing was employed - trying to examine all the possible paths through the program. While it would be impossible to test every possible combination of paths, it was attempted to ensure that every path was traversed at least once.
2.7 Interfacing with Sound

A considerable amount of time was spent on attempts to interface the music data produced by the program with Java classes and packages, notably jMusic [Sorensen & Brown] and JavaMidi [Marsanyi], which would have allowed the melodies produced by the program to be played. However, this proved problematic because of these packages using previous versions of Java with now deprecated methods, because of the lack of appropriate plug-ins available, lack of expertise about Java CLASSPATHs for Windows, and shortage of available hard disk storage quota. Unfortunately, no suitable Java classes were available in the standard Application Programming Interface (API) from Sun.
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2.8 Graph Plotting Software

An effort was made to download existing Java packages for graph drawing from the world wide web, for example Playfair.Plot [Princeton University]. However, problems were encountered similar to those faced when attempting to interface the program to classes for playing music, most significantly the problem of previous versions of Java and deprecated classes. Somewhat surprisingly and frustratingly, the standard Java API, despite containing an extensive Graphical User Interface, contains no methods for plotting graphs. After a comprehensive and fruitless search, it was decided to plot the graphs with Microsoft Excel. This proved time-consuming, especially at first as the application was unfamiliar to me, but produced clear plots.
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CHAPTER 3 - EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN AND RESULTS

This chapter details the experimental investigation into the performance of the GA.
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3.1 Experimental Design

Before conducting the experiment, thought was given to the choice of initial values for some of the program constants. 3.1.1 Choosing Initial Fitness Function Weights
Our overall fitness function has to be a weighted sum of all the parameters listed above. Because of our lack of knowledge about the relative importance of these parameters, it seems reasonable first to normalise the product (parameter weight * parameter value) for each parameter, ie to set this equal to a constant value. This was done by running the program for only one generation with a large population size (1000) and calculating the values for all the parameters. A normalisation constant was assigned arbitrarily to the number 100 and each parameter weight was then set equal to (normalisation constant / parameter value) for each parameter value.
3.1.2 Choosing Initial Population Size An initial population size of 100 was chosen: this was a compromise between the large population size desirable for effective operation of the algorithm on one hand [Holland, 1975] and the practical need to keep computational time for each trial short on the other.
3.1.3 Choosing Initial Mutation Rate The literature suggests that a mutation rate of 0.01 might be a good starting point. It was decided to code this as m = 1, n = 0.01 (m*n = 0.01) mutation would be allowed in every generation, and the probability of a tune in any generation being mutated would be 0.01.
3.1.4 Choosing Total Number of Generations It was found on several preliminary trials that the mean fitness of the tunes in the population did not improve after the first 100 generations, so it was decided to plot data over the first 100 generations only.
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3.2 Investigating Effect of Varying Fitness Function Weights

It was decided to vary these weights, one by one, by a constant fraction (10%), both upwards and downwards, while keeping all the other weights constant. It was hoped that this might shed some light on the relative importance of each of the fitness function parameters as the algorithm developed over the generations.
3.2.1 Plot of Mean Fitness First of all, mean fitness was plotted against generation number for the first 100 generations.
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3.2.1.1 Fig. 9
Results
Varying AVERAGE_LENGTH_WEIGHT
Varying AVERAGE_LENGTH_W EIGHT
2500 2000
mean fitness
1500 1000 500 0 0 20 40 60 80 100

generation number
normalised*0.9 normalised normalised*1.1
Fig. 10 Varying CONSECUTIVE_LENGTH_WEIGHT
Varying CONSECUTIVE_LENGTH_WEIGHT
2500 2000
mean fitness
1500 1000 500 0 0 20 40 60 80 100 generation number normalised*0.9 original normalised*1.1
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Varying FINAL_PITCH_WEIGHT
2500 2000
mean fitness
1500 1000 500 0 0 20 40 60 80 100 generation number normalised * 0.9 normalised normalised*1.1
Fig. 11 Varying FINAL_PITCH_WEIGHT
Varying FIRST_PITCH_W EIG HT

2500 2000
mean fitness
1500 1000 500 0 0 20 40 60 80 100 generationNo
norm alised*0.9
norm alised
norm alised*1.1
Fig. 12 Varying FIRST_PITCH_WEIGHT
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Varying FINAL_LENGTH_WEIGHT
2500 2000
meanFitness
1500 1000 500 0 0 20 40 60 80 100 generation number normalised*0.9 normalised normalised*1.1
Fig. 13 Varying FINAL_LENGTH_WEIGHT Varying NOTES_BEGIN_WEIGHT_1
2500 2000
mean fitness
1500 1000 500 0 0 20 40 60 80 100

generation number
normalised*0.9
normalised
normalised*1.1
Fig. 14 Varying NOTES_BEGIN_WEIGHT_1
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Varying NOTES_BEGIN_WEIGHT_2
2500 2000
mean fitness
1500 1000 500 0 0 20 40 60 80 100
generation number
normalised*0.9
normalised
normalised*1.1
Varying NOTES_BEGIN_WEIGHT_4
2500 2000
mean fitness
1500 1000 500 0 0 20 40 60 80 100 generation number
normalised*0.9
normalised
normalised*1.1
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Varying TRANSITION_WEIGHT
2500 2000
mean fitness
1500 1000 500 0 0 20 40 60 80 100

generation number
normalised*0.9
normalised
normalised*1.1
Fig. 17 Varying TRANSITION_WEIGHT
Fig. 18 Comparing Mean Fitness using Different Weights

Comparing Performance of GA using Different Weights
normalised
2500
decreased weights
increased weights
mean fitness after 100 generations
2000
1500
1000
500
normalised combinedl
finalpitch
finallength
finallength notesbegin notesbegin notesbegin
transition
averagele
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3.2.1.1 Discussion of these Results A GA population can be easily described by the mean fitness of its hypotheses. All the traces for mean fitness against generation number (figs. 9 to 17) show typical GA behaviour ie a steep increase in mean fitness over the first few generations, gradually reducing to a gentler and gentler gradient until becoming roughly flat. This is an indication that our program is functioning as required. The algorithm quickly weeds out the poor individuals from the initial population and creates improved ones through crossover and mutation, but inevitably cannot continue at this rate as the population becomes progressively fitter.
One might naively expect that the traces for the higher weight values would continue to outperform the others at greater generation numbers, but this is not generally the case , as we can see from fig. 18. In fact, the normalised weight combination performs better than all combinations with increased weights except those for final length weight and transition weight. Of course, as discussed earlier, the fitness parameters are not all independent of each other; when this is taken into account, it is clear that they must interact in a complex way to evolve the population, and that the trials using the higher weight values will not necessarily outperform the others.
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3.2.2 Plot of Maximum and Minimum Fitnesses and Standard Deviation It was reasoned that more could be gleaned about the tunes in a population by plotting the maximum and minimum fitnesses and standard deviation of the fitnesses for each generation against the generation number. This was again attempted for the same combinations of weights as above, and the traces for each combination plotted on the same graph along with mean fitness again.
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3.2.2.1 Results
GA with normalised weight values
2500
2000
1500
Fitness
1000
500
0 0 20 meanFitness 40
Generation Number
60
80
100
maxFitness
minFitness
Standard Deviation
Fig. 19 GA with normalised weight values
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AVERAGE_LENGTH_WEIGHT = normalised value * 1.1
2500 2000 1500 1000 500 0 0 20 40 60 80 100

Generation Number
Fitness
meanFitness
maxFitness
minFitness
Standard Deviation
Fig. 20 Increasing AVERAGE_LENGTH_WEIGHT
AVERAGE_LENGTH_WEIGHT = normalised value * 0.9
2500 2000 1500 1000 500 0 0 meanFitness 20 40 maxFitness 60 minFitness 80 100

Generation Number
Fitness
Standard Deviation
Fig. 21 Decreasing AVERAGE_LENGTH_WEIGHT
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CONSECUTIVE_LENGTHS_WEIGHT = normalised value * 1.1
2500 2000 1500 1000 500 0 0 20 40 60 80 100

Generation Number
Fitness
meanFitness
maxFitness
minFitness
Standard Deviation
Fig. 22 Increasing CONSECUTIVE_LENGTHS_WEIGHT

CONSECUTIVE_LENGTHS_WEIGHT = normalised value * 0.9
2500 2000 1500 1000 500 0 0 meanFitness 20 40 maxFitness 60 minFitness 80 100

Generation Number
Fitness
Standard Deviation
Fig. 23
Decreasing CONSECUTIVE_LENGTHS_WEIGHT
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FINAL_PITCH_WEIGHT = normalised value * 1.1
2500
2000
Fitness
1500
1000
500
0 0 20
meanFitness
40 60 Generation Number
maxFitness minFitness
80
100
Standard Deviation
Fig. 24 Increasing FINAL_PITCH_WEIGHT
FINAL_PITCH_WEIGHT = normalised value * 0.9
2500
2000
Fitness
1500
1000
500
0 0 20 40 60 80 100
Generation Number
meanFitness
maxFitness
minFitness
Standard Deviation
Fig. 25 Decreasing FINAL_PITCH_WEIGHT
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FINAL_LENGTH_WEIGHT = normalised value * 1.1
2000
1500
Fitness
1000
500
0 0 20 40 60 80 100
Generation Number
meanFitness
maxFitness
minFitness
Standard Deviation
Fig. 26 Increasing FINAL_LENGTH_WEIGHT
FINAL_LENGTH_WEIGHT = normalised value * 0.9
2500 2000 1500 1000 500 0 0 20 40 60 80 100

Generation Number
Fitness
meanFitness
maxFitness
minFitness
Standard Deviation
Fig. 27 Decreasing FINAL_LENGTH_WEIGHT
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FIRST_PITCH_WEIGHT = normalised value * 1.1
2500
2000
Fitness
1500
1000
500
0 0 20 40 60 80 100
Generation Number
meanFitness
maxFitness
minFitness
Standard Deviation
Fig. 28 Increasing FIRST_PITCH_WEIGHT

FIRST_PITCH_WEIGHT = normalised value * 0.9
2500 2000 1500 1000 500 0 0 20

meanFitness
Fitness
40
maxFitness
60
minFitness
80
100
Generation Number
Standard Deviation
Fig. 29 Decreasing FIRST_PITCH_WEIGHT
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NOTES_BEGIN_WEIGHT_1 = normalised value * 1.1
2500
2000
Fitness
1500
1000
500
0 0 20 40 60 80 100 Generation Number meanFitness maxFitness minFitness Standard Deviation
Fig. 30
Increasing NOTES_BEGIN_WEIGHT_1
2500
2000
Fitness
1500
1000
500
Fig. 31 Decreasing NOTES_BEGIN_WEIGHT_1
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2500
2000
Fitness
1500
1000
500
0 0 20 40 60 Generation Number maxFitness minFitness 80 100
meanFitness
Standard Deviation
Fig. 32 Increasing NOTES_BEGIN_WEIGHT_2
2000
1500
Fitness
1000
500
meanFitness
Standard Deviation
Fig. 33 Decreasing NOTES_BEGIN_WEIGHT_2
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2000
1500
Fitness
1000
500
Fig. 34
Increasing NOTES_BEGIN_WEIGHT_4
2500
2000
Fitness
1500
1000
500
Fig. 35
Decreasing NOTES_BEGIN_WEIGHT_4
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TRANSITION_WEIGHT = normalised value * 1.1
2500
2000
Fitness
1500
1000
500
meanFitness
Standard Deviation
Fig. 36 Increasing TRANSITION_WEIGHT
GA with TRANSITION_WEIGHT = normalised value * 0.9
2500
2000
Fitness
1500
1000
500
meanFitness
Standard Deviation
Fig. 37
Decreasing TRANSITION_WEIGHT
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C o m p a ring P e rfo rm a n c e o f G A u s in g D iffe re n t W e ig h ts
n o rm a lise d
2500
de cre as ed w e igh ts
in cre a se d w eigh ts
minimum fitness after 100 generations
2000
1500
1000
500
ne dl en gt h
Fig. 38 Comparing Minimum Fitness using Different Weights
co m bi
C o m p a rin g P e rfo rm a n c e o f G A u s in g D iffe re n t W e ig h ts
n o rm a lise d
2500
d e c re a s e d w e ig h ts
in c re a se d w e ig h ts
max fitness after 100 generations
2000
1500
1000
500
av er ag el en gt h
n av er ag e le n gt h
no te sb eg in 1
th
th
no te sb eg in 2
no te sb eg in 4
no rm al is ed
al is ed
fin al le ng
fin al le ng
sb eg in 1
sb eg in 2
fin al pi tc h
sb eg in 4
gt
gt
gt
bi ne dl en
al le n
al le n
no r
te
te
fin
fin
no
no
Fig. 39 Comparing Maximum Fitness using Different Weights
co m
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no
te
tra
ns iti o
tra ns itio n
fin al pi tc h
3.2.2.2
Discussion of these Results
Looking at the graphs (figs. 19 to 37), we can see that although both the maximum and minimum fitnesses for a generation follow a broadly similar curve to that for the mean fitness, the trace for the maximum is generally less smooth than that for the mean, and the trace for the minimum is generally much less smooth again. The standard deviation trace displays a general downward trend.
We would expect the trace for mean fitness to be smooth after all, any particularly large changes in individual tune fitnesses from one generation to the next will not be so evident after being averaged with all the smaller changes occurring in the other tunes.
We would expect the maximum curve also to be fairly smooth because, although the purpose of the GA is to find a tune with maximised fitness, this will clearly not be achieved at every generation. The tune of greatest fitness will have the greatest probability of survival from one generation to the next of any of the tunes in the population we can assume that it survives in the vast majority of cases. When it does survive, the maximum fitness in the new generation will only be different from that of the previous generation if a new, still more fit individual is created by crossover. Inevitably, this will not happen at every generation.
The minimum fitness for a generation, however, is likely to change more often and by greater amounts than the maximum fitness. This is because the tune of minimum fitness in a generation has a very low probability of survival into the next one. The tune of minimum fitness in the new generation will thus have a different value. This explains the jagged nature of the trace for minimum fitness.
The downward trend of the standard deviation trace can be explained by the fact that as generation number and mean fitness increase, the fitness of each tune in the population tends to draw closer to the mean.
In the majority of these graphs (eg. figs. 19, 20, 22), when the trace for maximum fitness reaches its maximum value, it will remain at this value for the remaining generations the GA cannot find any solutions better than this individual. Most of these values lie in the
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fitness range 2000 to 2100 (fig. 39). However, the theoretical maximum possible fitness, given by summing the maximum possible contributions from each parameter assuming parameters to be independent of each other, was calculated to be much higher (4403.02 for normalised weights). Parameter interdependence means that this is certainly an overestimate. However, it should certainly be possible to produce tunes with fitnesses higher than these trials apparent ceiling. Maybe we could achieve higher fitnesses if we varied the standard GA parameters of mutation rate and population size.
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3.3 Investigating Effect of Varying Standard GA Parameters

By keeping all fitness parameter weights constant (set to their normalised values), we can investigate the effect on population evolution of varying the standard GA parameters of mutation rate and population size.
3.3.1 Varying Mutation Rates It was decided to vary the values of the mutation rates by 40% upwards and downwards. This value was chosen because it represented the significant change deemed necessary to produce a noticeable effect on the results (it should be remembered that with a population size of in the region of 100 and an overall mutation rate around 0.01, the number of tune mutations taking place in each generation is likely to be as low as 1), but still less than a change of 50%, which was regarded as too large.
However, it was realised that increasing the mutation rate m (which represents the probability of any mutation being allowed in a generation) would have no effect, because m was initially set equal to 1. If m is set greater than 1, then the program automatically resets its value to 1 a probability of greater than 1 is not possible. So it was decided only to vary m downwards by 40% - using m = 1 (high) and m = 0.6 (low).
n (probability of mutation for a tune in a generation where mutation is allowed) was varied upwards and downwards by 40% - n = .014 (high) and n = 0.006 (low).
3.3.2 Varying Population Size Population size was varied both upwards and downwards by 10%. The reason that this value was chosen to be lower than the corresponding one for the mutation rates was that, unlike mutation rate, the population size is a significant feature of the GA in every trial and at every generation it was felt necessary merely to perturb this parameter.
The program was run with all eight possible combinations of mutation rate and population size. (fig. 40)
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Fig. 40 Table Showing Different Settings of Mutation Rate and Population Size MUT_RATE_1 MUT_RATE_2 POP_SIZE 1 0.014 110 1 0.014 90 1 0.006 110 1 0.006 90 0.6 0.014 110 0.6 0.014 90 0.6 0.006 110 0.6 0.006 90
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3.3.3 Results Fig. 41 MUT_RATE_1 high, MUT_RATE_2 high, POP_SIZE high
MUT_RATE_1 = 1, MUT_RATE_2 =0.014, POP_SIZE = 110
2500
2000
Fitness
1500
1000
500
Fig. 42 MUT_RATE_1 high, MUT_RATE_2 high, POP_SIZE low

2500
2000
Fitness
1500
1000
500
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2500
2000
Fitness
1500
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Fig. 43 MUT_RATE_1 high, MUT_RATE_2 low, POP_SIZE high

2500
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Fig. 44 MUT_RATE_1 high, MUT_RATE_2 low, POP_SIZE low
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Fig. 45 MUT_RATE_1 low, MUT_RATE_2 high, POP_SIZE high

MUT_RATE_1 = 0.6, MUT_RATE_2 =0.014, POP_SIZE = 110 2500
2000
Fitness
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MUT_RATE_1 = 0.6, MUT_RATE_2 =0.014, POP_SIZE = 90
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Fig. 46 MUT_RATE_1 low, MUT_RATE_2 high, POP_SIZE low
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2500
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Fitness
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meanFitness
Standard Deviation
Fig. 47 MUT_RATE_1 low, MUT_RATE_2 low, POP_SIZE high
2500
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Fitness
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Fig. 48 MUT_RATE_1 low, MUT_RATE_2 low, POP_SIZE low
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Comparing Performance of GA using Different Mutation Rates and Population Sizes, normalised weights
mean Fitness
2500
maximum Fitness
minimum Fitness
2000
fitness after 100 generations
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0
(0.6,0.006,90) (0.6,0.006,110) (0.6,0.014,90) (0.6,0.014,110) (1.0,0.006,90) (1.0,0.006,110) (1.0,0.014,90) (1.0,0.014,110)
(MUT_RATE_1, MUT_RATE_2, POP_SIZE)
Fig. 49 Varying Mutation Rates and Population Size
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3.3.4 Discussion of these Results
Traces broadly similar to those observed before for mean, maximum and minimum fitness were observed (figs. 41 to 48). Again, the maximum fitness trace tended to reach a maximum value after several generations and then remain there for the rest of the trial. We might expect that by increasing mutation rates and population size, we would succeed in breaking through the ceiling, but this does not seem to have happened here. In fact, the highest value of fitness for any trial was achieved with MUT_RATE_1 high and MUT_RATE_2 and POP_SIZE both low (see figs. 44 and 49).
So why do we have a ceiling? The fact that standard deviation of the fitnesses is low and the mean fitness is very close to the maximum fitness for many of these trials after 100 generations suggests that perhaps many tunes share the maximum fitness. Perhaps we can discover more by running other trials and examining the fitnesses of every tune in the population after 100 generations, and the composition of the tunes of maximum fitness.
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3.4 Examination of Tunes of Maximum Fitness

In an attempt to understand better just why maximum fitness was limited, a version of the program was run which outputted the fitnesses of all the tunes after 1000 generations.
It was found that anything from 20% to 78% of the tunes in a population had the same single value of fitness, and that within each population a few fitness values were shared among all the tunes. This suggested strongly that all the tunes shared a very small number of different bars, which were arranged in different combinations.
Next, a version of the program was run which outputted information about the maximumscoring tune after 100 generations.
The tunes of maximum fitness were found to display the following common features:
1. In all cases, the final bar consisted of a note of pitch equal to one of the tonic pitches and of length 16 semi-quavers. This meant that the tune scored optimally for final note length and pitch.
2. In all cases, the first bar began with a note of pitch equal to one of the member pitches of the tonic triad. This meant that the tune scored optimally for first note pitch. The first bar tended to be identical to at least one of the middle six bars in the tune.
3. The six other bars in the tune were similar in that they contained no unwanted pitch transitions, tended to have values which represented a trade-off between the other fitness parameters, and tended both to begin on a note which was a member of the tonic triad and end on the tonic note. In fact, in one case, the same bar was repeated six times; in all others, the same two bars were arranged in different permutations.
This information goes some way towards explaining why maximum tune fitness tends to stabilise after several generations. The population evolves to contain only a limited amount of bars which give most tunes a high fitness. Because of this, crossover and mutation will rarely alter tune fitness significantly. When they do, it is to decrease it.
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3.5 Listening to the Music Produced

Some examples of the maximum- and minimum-scoring tunes in a population were played by the author on the violin. However, none of the melodies were particularly easy on the ear, and the maximum-scoring tunes did not seem significantly better than the minimumscoring ones.
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CHAPTER 4 - CONCLUSIONS AND POSSIBILITIES FOR FUTURE WORK

This chapter rounds off the dissertation with a paragraph about the conclusions of the project, a discussion of possibilities for future work, and a summary assessing the value of the project in general.
4.1 Conclusions
A GA for music composition has been successfully implemented. However, in its present form, and in particular with its present fitness function, it is only successful in improving maximum tune fitness over a small number of generations. After these generations, the maximum fitness tends to remain fixed at values of perhaps around half of the theoretical maximum. This was found to be due to the proliferation of a small number of bars, and in particular to the proliferation of a single bar in each particular trial, which rendered the GA operators of crossover and mutation largely ineffective. Adjustment of the fitness function parameters and standard GA parameters of mutation rate and population size were not found to lead to any marked improvement in performance; it is likely that this could only be achieved by modifying the fitness function in a way that would discourage too many identical bars within a tune or too many identical tunes within a population.
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4.2 Possibilities For Future Work

If time had allowed, existing features of the GA could have been investigated more thoroughly, and new features could have been added and experimented with.
A priority would certainly be to interface the program to software which would allow the music generated to be heard. It is obviously difficult to determine whether an algorithm is producing good music without a convenient playback facility. This would help us to determine how best to weight our existing fitness parameters, and might give us some clearer ideas as to which parameters to add.
Attempts could be made to modify the fitness function so that it would discourage the emergence of too many identical bars within a tune or too many identical tunes within a population.
Each fitness parameter could be graphed separately against generation number. This would give us a better idea of the relative importance of each to the overall fitness function. More sophisticated methods could be developed for tracking the algorithm, for instance a method to return the number of tunes in a population with the same fitnesses and the number of identical bars and tunes in the population.
We could investigate new ways of weighting the existing fitness parameters in an attempt to discover the optimal combinations of weights giving the highest fitness scores. Some parameters could be modified in more subtle ways, for instance the threshold transition for the parameter penalising unwanted pitch transitions could be varied. Other fitness parameters which could be introduced include amount of repetition in patterns both of duration and pitch, and frequencies of occurrence of particular notes in the piece.
It could be worthwhile to explore further the effect on tune fitnesses of different combinations of population size and mutation rate constants. It would also be possible to experiment with varying population sizes from one generation to the next and exploring different types of operators, eg. one to reverse the order of bars in a tune. Chunk size and
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the number of tunes to generate by crossover could also be changed, as could the selection and crossover methods.
The many constants present in the program mean that it could be easily modified to investigate melodies using different time signatures, different scales, and more than one octave.
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4.3 Summary
It is my opinion that this project has been moderately successful. The first few weeks were spent familiarising myself with Java, this being the first time I had used the language. Time was also spent attempting to interface the program to music software and graphdrawing packages as discussed above, as well as to acquainting the author with Excel. This left a rather shorter time than had been hoped for the core project work of coding and investigation. However, the algorithm has been implemented with a fair degree of success, and while the music produced by the program may not be of a particularly high standard, the results have pointed towards some interesting possibilities for further work.
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REFERENCES
1. Biles, J. A. GenJam: A Genetic Algorithm for Generating Jazz Solos, in Proceedings of the International Computer Music Conference, International Computer Music Association, Aarhus, Denmark, 1994.
2. Burton, A. R. & Vladimirova, T. "Genetic Algorithm Utilising Neural Network Fitness Evaluation for Musical Composition", in Proceedings of the 1997 International Conference on Artificial Neural Networks & Genetic Algorithms, pp. 220-224
3. Corne, D., Fang H-L., Mellish, C. "Solving the Module Exam Scheduling Problem with Genetic Algorithms", in Proceedings of the Sixth International Conference on Industrial and Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence and Expert Systems, Gordon and Breach Science Publishers, Chung, Lovegrove, Ali (eds), 1993, pp. 370-373.
4. Cope, D. The Composers Underscoring Environment: CUE, Computer Music Journal, 21 (3), 20-37, 1997.
5. Drakos, N., Prugel-Bennett, A. & Moore, R. "Modelling Evolving Populations", online document, University of Southampton, 1996. http://www.isis.ecs.soton.ac.uk/isystems/evolutionary/notes/evol/evol.html
6. Holland, J. H. Adaptation in Natural and Artificial Systems, University of Michigan Press, 1975.
7. Horner, A. & Goldberg, D. E. Genetic Algorithms and Computer-Assisted Composition, in Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Genetic Algorithms, 1991.
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8. Horowitz, D. Generating Rhythms with Genetic Algorithms, in Proceedings of the International Computer Music Conference, Thessaloniki, Greece, 1994.
9. Jacob, B. L. Composing With Genetic Algorithms, Proceedings of the International Computer Music Conference 1995, International Computer Music Association, Banff, Alberta, Canada, 1995.
10. Johanson, B. & Poli, R. "GP-Music: An Interactive Genetic Programming System for Music Generation with Automated Fitness Raters", in Proceedings of the 3rd Annual Conference in Genetic Programming, 1998
11. Koza, J. R. Genetic Programming : On the Programming of Computers by Means of Natural Selection, MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, 1992
12. Lander, N. A Memento the Medieval Recorder, http://members.iinet.net.au/~nickl/medieval.html
13. Loy, D. G. Connectionism and Musiconomy in Todd, P. M. & Loy, D. G., eds., Music and Connectionism, pp. 20-36, Cambridge, MA, MIT Press, 1991.
14. McIntyre, R. A. Bach in a Box: The Evolution of Four-Part Baroque Harmony Using the Genetic Algorithm, in Proceedings of the IEEE Conference on Evolutionary Computation, 1994.
15. Marsanyi, R.
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JavaMidi, www.softsynth.com/Javamidi/doc/Package-jmidi.html
16. Merriam-Webster Merriam-Webster Online Collegiate Dictionary, 2001, http://www.m-w.com/home.htm
17. Milkie, E. & Chestnutt, J. Fugue Generation with Genetic Algorithms, online paper, Department of Computing Science, Cornell University, USA, 2001
http://www.cs.cornell.edu/boom/2001/Milkie/Fugue%20Generation%20through%20Genetic%20Al gorithms_files/csReport.htm
18. Mitchell, T. M. Machine Learning, McGraw Hill, 1997.
19. Mozer, M. C. Neural network music composition by prediction: Exploring the benefits of psychophysical constraints and multiscale processing, Connection Science, 6, 247280, 1994.
20. Papadopoulos, G. & Wiggins, G. "A Genetic Algorithm for the Generation of Jazz Melodies", Proceedings of STeP 98, Jyvaskyla, Finland, 1998
21. Papadopoulos, G. & Wiggins, G. "AI Methods for Algorithmic Composition: A Survey, a Critical View and Future Prospects, AISB Symposium on Musical Creativity, Edinburgh, 1999.
22. Princeton University Playfair.Plot, http://www.princeton.edu/~scimath/playfair3/doc/Playfair.Plot.html
23. Shamblen, E. "The Music or Noise Generator: A Genetic Algorithm Approach to Music Composition", MSc thesis, University of Georgia, 1999.
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www.jps.net/shamblen/pro/thesis.html
24. Spector, L. & Alpern, A. Induction and Recapitulation of Deep Musical Structure, in Proceedings of the IJCAI-95 Workshop on Artificial Intelligence and Music, 1995.
25. Sims, K. Genetic Images, Centre Georges Pompidou Revue Virtuelle Notebook 5, 1993. http://www.genarts.com/karl/genetic-images.html,
26. Sorensen, A. & Brown, A. jMusic, Queensland University of Technology, Australia
http://www.academy.qut.edu.au/music/newmedia/jmusic/
27. Todd, P. M. & Werner, G. M. "Frankensteinian Methods for Evolutionary Music Composition", in Griffith, N. & Todd, P. M. (Eds) Musical Networks: Parallel Distributed Perception and Performance, MIT Press/Bradford Books, Cambridge, MA, 1999
28. Tokui, N. & Iba, H. "Music Composition with Interactive Evolutionary Computation", Department of Information and Communication Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, University of Tokyo, Japan http://www.miv.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/~tokui/research/iec-music/
29. Towsey, M., Brown, A.,Wright, S. & Diederich, J. "Towards Melodic Extension Using Genetic Algorithms", in Educational Technology & Society, vol. 4 no. 2, 2001.
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30. Wiggins, G., Papadopoulos, G., Phon-Amnuaisuk, S. & Tuson, A. Evolutionary Methods for Musical Composition, International Journal of Computing Anticipatory Systems, 1999.
31. Yu, C. Computer Generated Music Composition, BSc/MSc thesis, MIT, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1996, http://www.oz.net/~cyu/Thesis.html
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Bell, D., Morrey, I. & Pugh, J. Software Engineering A Programming Approach, second edn., Prentice Hall International, Hemel Hempstead, England, 1992. - useful description of Software Engineering basics.
3. Darwin, C. The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, 6th edn., Watts/John Murray, 1976. - the book in which Darwin first presented the revolutionary idea of evolution through selection and mutation.
3. Eckel, B. Thinking in Java, Prentice Hall, New Jersey, 2000. - good introductory text on Java.
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APPENDICES
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Appendix 1
Contents of CD
The CD has 4 subdirectories excelfiles, which contains all tables and graphs of data, programcode, which contains the final main program (Gasep6MostImp) and other versions for outputting information about the Bar and Pop classes, programoutput, containing sample output from various versions of the program and wordfiles, which contains a copy of this dissertation.
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Appendix 2
Source Code
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A Genetic Algorithm For Music Composition

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A GENETIC ALGORITHM FOR MUSIC COMPOSITION

GAVIN PENNYCOOK MSC INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (SYSTEMS) September 2001

Gavin Pennycook MSc Information Technology (Systems)

Gavin Pennycook MSc Information Technology (Systems)

Gavin Pennycook MSc Information Technology (Systems)

Gavin Pennycook MSc Information Technology (Systems)

Fig. 47 Fig. 48 Fig. 49

Gavin Pennycook MSc Information Technology (Systems)

Gavin Pennycook MSc Information Technology (Systems)

Gavin Pennycook MSc Information Technology (Systems)

Gavin Pennycook MSc Information Technology (Systems)

1.1 Some Music Theory

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2 octaves of a piano keyboard

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Relationships between different note durations

. The top number ( 3 ) represents the

Gavin Pennycook MSc Information Technology (Systems)

1.2 Algorithmic Music Composition

Gavin Pennycook MSc Information Technology (Systems)

The Composition of Music

Gavin Pennycook MSc Information Technology (Systems)

Gavin Pennycook MSc Information Technology (Systems)

1.3 Genetic Algorithms

Gavin Pennycook MSc Information Technology (Systems)

A GA consists of the following components:

Gavin Pennycook MSc Information Technology (Systems)

Initialise population generate p hypotheses at random

Evaluate for each hypothesis calculate fitness.

Create new population select hypotheses from previous generations pool

Increase generation number by 1

Evaluate all child hypotheses

Add all child hypotheses to population , creating temporary pool

Gavin Pennycook MSc Information Technology (Systems)

Gavin Pennycook MSc Information Technology (Systems)

Mutation Mutation 00000000 -------------> 00000100

Gavin Pennycook MSc Information Technology (Systems)

Gavin Pennycook MSc Information Technology (Systems)

Genetic Algorithms and Music Composition

Automated Fitness Function

Gavin Pennycook MSc Information Technology (Systems)

Gavin Pennycook MSc Information Technology (Systems)

Gavin Pennycook MSc Information Technology (Systems)

CHAPTER 2 DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF PROGRAM

Gavin Pennycook MSc Information Technology (Systems)

2.2 Design of the Algorithm

Gavin Pennycook MSc Information Technology (Systems)

Gavin Pennycook MSc Information Technology (Systems)

Say P = 2 and Q = 4, with a chunk size of 3 Fig. 6 Chunk Crossover

Gavin Pennycook MSc Information Technology (Systems)

Gavin Pennycook MSc Information Technology (Systems)

Gavin Pennycook MSc Information Technology (Systems)

Gavin Pennycook MSc Information Technology (Systems)

2.3 The Overall Algorithm

Gavin Pennycook MSc Information Technology (Systems)

Genetic Algorithm for Music Composition

Evaluate for each tune in population, calculate fitness.

Is generation number still within range?

Increase generation number by 1

Evaluate all child tunes

Gavin Pennycook MSc Information Technology (Systems)

Gavin Pennycook MSc Information Technology (Systems)

UML class diagram for the program

1500 1000 500 0 0 20 40 60 80 100 generation number normalised0.9 original normalised1.1

1500 1000 500 0 0 20 40 60 80 100 generation number normalised0.9 normalised normalised1.1