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Evolving L-Systems with Musical Notes

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Evolutionary and Biologically Inspired Music, Sound, Art and Design (EvoMUSART 2016)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNTCS,volume 9596))

Abstract

Over the years researchers have been interested in devising computational approaches for music and image generation. Some of the approaches rely on generative rewriting systems like L-systems. More recently, some authors questioned the interplay of music and images, that is, how we can use one type to drive the other. In this paper we present a new method for the algorithmic generations of images that are the result of a visual interpretation of an L-system. The main novelty of our approach is based on the fact that the L-system itself is the result of an evolutionary process guided by musical elements. Musical notes are decomposed into elements – pitch, duration and volume in the current implementation – and each of them is mapped into corresponding parameters of the L-system – currently line length, width, color and turning angle. We describe the architecture of our system, based on a multi-agent simulation environment, and show the results of some experiments that provide support to our approach.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    It is possible to catch some note that has been previously caught.

  2. 2.

    Each note parameters were interpreted as a MIDI note: (i) pitch range: 0 – 127 (ii) volume range: 20 – 102 (iii) duration range 200 – 4000 ms (iv) timbre – piano (0).

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Acknowledgments

This research is partially funded by the project ConCreTe. Project ConCreTe acknowledges financial support of the Future and Emerging Technologies (FET) programme with the Seventh Framework Programme for Research of the European Commission, under FET grant number 611733.

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Correspondence to Ana Rodrigues .

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Rodrigues, A., Costa, E., Cardoso, A., Machado, P., Cruz, T. (2016). Evolving L-Systems with Musical Notes. In: Johnson, C., Ciesielski, V., Correia, J., Machado, P. (eds) Evolutionary and Biologically Inspired Music, Sound, Art and Design. EvoMUSART 2016. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 9596. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31008-4_13

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31008-4_13

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