Artificial Intelligence inOrganised Sound

Abstract

Artificial Intelligence is a rich and still-developing field with a number of musical applications. This paper surveys the use of Artificial Intelligence in music in the pages ofOrganised Sound, from the first issue to the latest, at the time of writing. Traditionally, Artificial Intelligence systems for music have been designed with note-based composition in mind, but the research we present here finds that Artificial Intelligence has also had a significant impact in electroacoustic music, with contributions in the fields of sound analysis, real-time sonic interaction and interactive performance-driven composition, to cite but three. Two distinct categories emerged in theOrganised Soundpapers: on the one hand, philosophically and/or psychologically inspired, symbolic approaches and, on the other hand, biologically inspired approaches, also referred to as Artificial Life approaches. The two approaches are not mutually exclusive in their use, and in some cases are combined to achieve ‘best of both’ solutions. That said, asOrganised Soundis uniquely positioned in the electroacoustic music community, it is somewhat surprising that work addressing important compositional issues such as musical form and structure, which Artificial Intelligence can be readily applied to, is not more present in these pages.