A Genetic Rule-Based Model of Expressive Performance for Jazz Saxophone

Abstract

We describe an evolutionary approach to inducing a generative model of expressive music performance for Jazz saxophone. We begin with a collection of audio recordings of real Jazz saxophone performances from which we extract a symbolic representation of the musician's expressive performance. We then apply an evolutionary algorithm to the symbolic representation in order to obtain computational models for different aspects of expressive performance. Finally, we use these models to automatically synthesize performances with the timing and energy expressiveness that characterizes the music generated by a professional saxophonist.