Artificial Life Models for Musical Applications: workshop report.

Abstract

Music is a complex system shaped by several adaptive processes, including individual behavior and learning cultural and biological evolution. How can we study the origins and change of such a multilevel system? As researchers addressing similar questions in the realm of language have begun to propose, the methods of artificial life (ALife) modeling can be very useful for this type of investigation of interacting dynamic adaptive processes. To explore the possibilities of this approach for the investigation and creation of musical behavior, we organized the first workshop on Artificial Life Models for Musical Applications (ALMMA) at the Sixth European Conference on Artificial Life (ECAL’01) in Prague, Czech Republic. Our goals were to bring together researchers who are developing musical ALife systems to share their ideas and experiences, and to help establish this topic as a promising application of the techniques and approaches of ALife simulation. The scientific questions that can be addressed through ALife models of music overlap with those considered in ALife models of language: What functional theories of its evolutionary origins make sense? How do learning and evolved components interact to shape the musical culture that develops over time? What are the dynamics of the spread of musical “memes” through a population? But some of the questions (and answers) will be unique to music, especially surrounding the issues of its functional significance (if any) and the creative processes underlying musical composition and production. In addition to considering such scientific questions, the ALMMA workshop participants were interested in artistic applications of artificial life models in music—for