Human-Competitive Drum Track
Generation in NEAT Drummer
Amy K. Hoover, Michael P. Rosario, and Kenneth O. Stanley
School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
University of Central Florida
http://eplex.cs.ucf.edu/neatmusic
In What Areas Do Humans Still
Reign Supreme?
• Mathematics?
• Games?
• Engineering?
• The computers are catching up!
Answer: Creativity
• Creativity is often called uniquely human
• While computers solve problems routinely…
• Few expect them to produce beauty or depth
• Art, music, literature, poetry
• These are not the traditional province of machines
• If EC is truly human competitive, it must
demonstrate it can compete on this final
human frontier
An Elegant Theory of Musical
Accompaniment
• Existing tracks are a scaffold upon which
accompaniment is built
• Demonstrated through percussion tracks:
– Music is a function over time
– Desirable drum pattern (accompaniment): f(t)
– Preexisting instrumental part (scaffold): p(t)
– Easy way to find f(t): p(t)
– g(p(t)) = f(t)
• NEAT Drummer: drum patterns are functions of other
parts of a song
Output Level
Encoding Drum Tracks From the
Scaffold
Accompaniment outputs
A kind of neural network
(evolved)
Scaffold inputs
NEAT Drummer: Interactively
Evolves the CPPN Accompaniment
Why Is It Human-Competitive? (1)
• Widely acknowledged that computergenerated music fails to capture global
structure (McCormack, 2005; Husbands et al.,
2007)
– The scaffolding transmits the global sturcture to
the accompaniment: like a human
• Next: Listen to songs by Barry Taylor
sequenced without percussion
Example: Johnny Cope
Outputs
• Follows the global structure
Johnny Cope
Outputs
• Follows the global structure
Oh! Susanna
Oh! Susanna
Why Is It Human Competitive? (2)
• Barry Taylor comments on percussion
generated for his own songs:
“Those samples were amazing! … I have heard some
‘auto drum’ software in the past and the result, at least
when applied to old traditional tunes, is usually appalling.
I must confess that I was a little wary of listening to the
results of your application applied to *my* sequences, but
your work gives me renewed hope that great quality can
indeed be achieved! Keep up the superb work! I wish you
continued success in your project...and I'm thrilled to
contribute in this small way!”
• Conclusion: NEAT Drummer surpasses prior
results in the field according to an
experienced musician
Why Is NEAT Drummer the Best? (1)
• Simple theory overcomes a major hurdle: Global structure
• Experienced musician endorses it above existing “auto-drum”
technology
• It won the Best Paper Award in its field at EvoMUSART 2008:
Judged best by its peers
• Amy Hoover presented it at the University of Central Florida
Showcase of Undergraduate Research Excellence in Physical
Sciences, Mathematics, Computer Science and Engineering : It
won 1st place out of 30 entries!
A. K. Hoover, M. P. Rosario, and K. O. Stanley. Scaffolding for interactively
evolving novel drum tracks for existing songs. In M. G. et. al., editor,
Proceedings of the Sixth European Workshop on Evolutionary and
Biologically Inspired Music, Sound, Art and Design (EvoMUSART 2008),
pages 412-422. Springer.
Why Is NEAT Drummer the Best? (2)
• Human-competitive in a uniquely human
domain
• It brings attention to EC from a broader
audience than exclusively focusing on
technical fields
– Complements such work well by rounding out the
sphere of non-human achievement
Additional Information
• EPlex website: http://eplex.cs.ucf.edu
• More from Barry Taylor (thanks, Barry!):
http://www.contemplator.com/tunebook/index.htm
• http://members.shaw.ca/tunebook/
• More samples and comparisons: http://eplex.cs.ucf.edu/neatmusic
•Publications:
•Amy K. Hoover and Kenneth O. Stanley. Exploiting Functional Relationships in Musical Composition.“
Connection Science Special Issue on Music, Brain, & Cognition (Arbington, UK, 2009)
•Amy K. Hoover, Michael P. Rosario, and Kenneth O. Stanley. Scaffolding for Interactively Evolving Novel
Drum Tracks for Existing Songs." In Proceedings of the Sixth European Workshop on Evolutionary and
Biologically Inspired Music, Sound, Art and Design (EvoMUSART 2008), pp. 412-422 (Springer, New York
NY, 2008).