A COMPUTER-AIDED SOUNDTRACK COMPOSITION SYSTEM DESIGNED FOR HUMANS

Film music is a well-defined compositional domain hav-ing specific features that are easily and usefully automated. To begin exploring automated soundtrack composition we have implemented a system that helps a composer to cre-ate a musical score matched to a film or video, for mu-sic composed in a minimalist style. The composer pro-vides the musical themes and specifies a repetition pattern; the computer provides a collection of scores matching the composer’s work to the film timing; and the composer chooses from among the proposed scores. We judge that this composition procedure leaves all significant creativ-ity in the hands of the composer where it belongs, facili-tates recomposition required by changes during film edit-ing, and maintains the overall process of film music com-position, while doing automatically the timing and tempo calculations that are distasteful to many composers. 1