The Spiral Model for Generative Harmony

Generative music is a broad and well-explored field, in which researchers have attempted various approaches at creating algorithmic models for the creation of music. Researchers may attempt to model the composition of melody, or of musical phrase structure, or, as is the focus of this paper, the harmonization of multiple voices. I use as the core of my model Elaine Chew’s “Spiral Array”, outlined in her 2000 thesis “Towards a Mathematical Model Of Tonality”. Chew’s applications for this model were all analytical, gaining insights about human-composed pieces of music by running them through her model. My project is comprised of repurposing her framework as an agent-based model used for generation, analyzing the output of my model using some common metrics from the field of agent-based modeling, and providing commentary on its performance, and success as a music-making algorithm