Hello, my name is Kayla Gray! I am a senior double-majoring in Computer Science B.S. and Mathematics B.A. at SUNY Oswego. I am graduating in May 2023. This website displays supporting documents and audio files chronicaling my work on my honors thesis, "The Singularity Symphony."
This project is an exploratory study on algorithmic composition in the context of the ongoing debate regarding artificial intelligence and the singularity. Music is a juxtaposition of creativity and emotion, two considerably human qualities; if a machine can simulate musical pieces featuring these facets of humanity, do humans have a place in the future of music? This project provides insight and use case analyses on several algorithmic composition techniques: rule-based systems, constraint-based systems, Markov chains, genetic algorithms, grammars, neural networks, and generative adversarial networks. Upon building foundational knowledge of algorithmic composition, I present my own creations in algorithmic composition under the umbrella band name of “Dystopian Tuesday.” These creations feature the use of constraint-based systems and genetic algorithms to create music ranging from simple melodies to music samples featuring multiple instruments. This project concludes with a discussion of the future of this technology. Ultimately, I predict that artificial intelligence will revolutionize the music industry by amplifying the stories of experienced and inexperienced musicians alike via musical collaboration afforded by algorithmic composition.
In an attempt to poke fun at the singularity debate, I decided to house all of my algorithmic composition projects under the fictional band name "Dystopian Tuesday." Band members compose of the artificial intelligence I created as well as myself. I relish the opportunity to declare that I was apart of a band consisting of AI. Dystopian Tuesday went through three iterations: a melody-making genetic algorithm, a constraint-based system that creates music samples featuring multiple instrumental parts, and a hybridized genetic algorithm and constraint system that uses user input to create music samples featuring two melodies. These are denoted by their version numbers in chronological order.
Dystopian Tuesday v1 is a simple melody-maker written in CLisp that uses a genetic algorithm to create melodies of different styles. It was created for CSC 416 - Artificial Intelligence I as the "wild card" genetic algorithm assignment.
Dystopian Tuesday v2 is the second iteration of my algorithmic composition exploratory programs. It uses a constraint-based system written in Java to produce music samples featuring 0-4 instrument parts. I wanted this one to model its songs after how a traditional band - rhythm guitar, lead guitar, bass, and drums - sounds. I tried to add structure by following an intro-verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus structure. In each part, instruments have a chance of not playing to add variation. The first four samples do not have the aforementioned song structure, as they were created while as the program was being developed. The last two samples are songs created using the final result of Dystopian Tuesday v2. The inclusion of all of the songs below is meant to highlight the progression of development. All names are randomly generated adjectives and nouns chosen by myself.
This iteration of Dystopian Tuesday seeks to increase user collaboration with algorithmic composition programs. Dystopian Tuesday v3 uses a genetic algorithm and a constraint-based system to generate music samples with two melodies. It uses user rankings of music samples as the fitness metric to increase user participation in the creation of the music samples. This project was created for CSC 466 - Artificial Intelligence II.