1. 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

2. In What Areas Do Humans Still Reign Supreme?
Mathematics?
Games?
Engineering?
The computers are catching up!

3. 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

4. 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

5. Encoding Drum Tracks From the Scaffold
Output Level
Accompaniment outputs
A kind of neural network
(evolved)
Scaffold inputs

6. NEAT Drummer: Interactively Evolves the CPPN Accompaniment

7. Why Is It Human-Competitive? (1)
Widely acknowledged that computer-generated 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

8. Example: Johnny Cope
Outputs
Follows the global structure

9. Johnny Cope
Outputs
Follows the global structure

10. Oh! Susanna

11. Oh! Susanna

12. Why Is It Human Competitive? (2)
Barry Taylor comments on percussion generated for his own songs:
Conclusion: NEAT Drummer surpasses prior results in the field according to an experienced musician
“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!”

13. 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 Springer.

14. 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

15. Additional Information
EPlex website:
More from Barry Taylor (thanks, Barry!):
More samples and comparisons:
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 (Springer, New York NY, 2008).