Modelling the Dynamics of Musical Engagement

This paper presents work in progress on the modelling of emergence in an intelligent music composition/performance system. A model is described which seeks to encourage such emergence by facilitating interaction between musician and system. A complex adaptive systems population of musical behaviours inhabits a landscape which in turn is shaped by a process of description and redescription of the events which constitute its environment. It is suggested that the mutually evolving space thus generated might be considered a useful model of the emotional engagement between musician or listener and an external musical "object"