Abstract

This thesis describes an approach to representing musical rhythm in computational terms. The purpose of such an approach is to provide better models of musical time for machine accompaniment of human musicians and in that attempt, to better understand the processes behind human perception and performance. The intersections between musicology and artificial intelligence (AI) are reviewed, describing the rewards from the interdisciplinary study of music with AI techniques, and the converse benefits to AI research. The arguments for formalisation of musicological theories using AI and cognitive science concepts are presented. These bear upon the approach of research, considering ethnographic and process models of music versus traditionally descriptive methods of music study. This enquiry investigates the degree to which the human task of music can be studied and modelled computationally. It simultaneously performs the AI task of problem domain identification and constraint. The psycholo...

Citations