A funny thing happened on the way to the formula: Algorithmic composition for musical theatre

Collins, Nick

Abstract

Algorithmic composition methods must prove themselves within real-world musical contexts to more firmly solidify their adoption in musical practice. The present project is an automatic composing program trained on a corpus of songs from musical theater to create novel material, directly generating a scored lead sheet of vocal melody and chords. The program can also produce output based upon phonetic analysis of user-provided lyrics. The chance to undertake the research arose from a television documentary funded by Sky Arts that considered the question of whether current-generation, computationally creative methods could devise a new work of musical theater (the research described here provides but one strand within that project). Allied with the documentary, the resultant musical had a two-week West End run in London and was itself broadcast in full. Evaluation of the project included both design feedback from a musical theater composer team, and critical feedback from audiences and media coverage. The research challenges of the real-world context are discussed, with respect to the compromises necessary to get such a project to the stage.

Citation

Collins, N. (2016). A funny thing happened on the way to the formula: Algorithmic composition for musical theatre. Computer Music Journal, 40(3), 41-57. https://doi.org/10.1162/comj_a_00373

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jul 9, 2016
• Online Publication Date: Sep 1, 2016
• Publication Date: Sep 1, 2016
• Deposit Date: Sep 13, 2016
• Publicly Available Date: Oct 4, 2016
• Journal: Computer Music Journal
• Print ISSN: 0148-9267
• Electronic ISSN: 1531-5169
• Publisher: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 40
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 41-57
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1162/comj_a_00373
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1405003
• Publisher URL: https://muse.jhu.edu/journal/34