An Introduction to Musical Metacreation

Abstract

Musical metacreation (MuMe), also known as musical computational creativity, is a subfield of computational creativity that focuses on endowing machines with the ability to achieve creative musical tasks, such as composition, interpretation, improvisation, accompaniment, mixing, etc. It covers all dimensions of the theory and practice of computational generative music systems, ranging from purely artistic approaches to purely scientific ones, inclusive of discourses relevant to this topic from the humanities. MuMe systems range from purely generative ones to a variety of interactive systems, such as those for computer-assisted composition and computer-assisted sound design. In order to better appreciate the many dimensions of this interdisciplinary domain and see how it overlaps and differs from research in computer music, this introduction provides a general entry point. After defining and introducing the domain, its context, and some of its terminology, we reflect on some challenges and opportunities for the field as a whole.