Interactive GenJam: Integrating Real-time Performance with a Genetic Algorithm

Abstract

This presentation will describe and demonstrate recent enhancements to GenJam, an interactive genetic algorithm jazz improviser. The most significant enhancement incorporates a pitch-to-MIDI capability, which allows GenJam to integrate human improvisations into its own improvisations. Specifically, when GenJam “trades fours” with a human, it listens to the human’s last four measures, maps what it hears to its chromosome representation, mutates the chromosomes, and plays the result as its next four. In other words, GenJam evolves what it “hears” into what it will play in real time. Other recent enhancements are also discussed.