Abstract Why automatically generate music for sight reading? A
major challenge that any beginning student faces when learning to play
a musical instrument is sight reading. Whereas in some instruments each
note can be played in only one way, in other instruments, most notably
string instruments, each note (except for a few lowest and highest
notes of the instrument’s range) can be played on several strings. For
example, on the guitar, the note C4 (middle C) can be played on the 1st
fret of the 2nd string, or on the 5th fret of the 3rd string, or on the
10th fret of the 4th string, and so on. Consequently, when playing a
piece of music on the guitar (or any string instrument), the player
must continuously make decisions as for what strings and with which
left-hand fingerings to play the upcoming notes. The ability to do this
at sight and without pre-reading and preparation is called sight
reading.
The project described in this report focuses on sight
reading for the guitar, although it can be used equally well with any
instrument that uses the treble clef. On the guitar, position is
defined as the fret on which the index finger rests. When playing a
simple piece of music (spanning no more than two octaves), the player
can usually choose a position (depending on the range of notes) and
stay on the same position throughout the piece. In more advanced music,
the player may have to change positions as the music flows. The choice
of position is also affected by the key. For example, in the key of C,
the open position as well as positions 1, 3, 5, 7, 8 and 10 are all
convenient (depending on the range of the piece); however, positions 2,
4, 6, 9 and 11 are less convenient. In summary, the aspiring guitar
student should eventually be able to sight read any piece of music, of
any key and any range of notes.
Beginning students spend most of
their time playing tonal music; that is, music in a specific diatonic
key (major or minor). However, more advanced students must be able to
read music that is not strictly tonal (that is, including many
accidentals) or even atonal.
| Another
aspect of sight reading concerns the ability to read rhythm. Beginning
students concentrate on regular rhythms (such as 4/4 or 3/4) and
relatively long notes (such as quarter notes and half notes); more
advance students need to read short notes (eighth and sixteenth). Also,
advanced sight reading requires reading of irregular rhythms and
syncopations.
Whereas many guitar-learning books are available,
few devote sufficient attention to extensive sight reading. Even the
ones that exist cannot possibly cover all positions and all keys, with
varying degrees of difficulty of rhythms and atonality, while providing
numerous study pieces for each choice. Motivated by this, we set out to
develop software that generates melodies “on demand”, giving the user a
wide range of choices, including keys, melody ranges, rhythmic
irregularities, and levels of atonality. The melodies generated by the
software are random; that is, they follow statistical rules rather
human artistry. Consequently, they are not necessarily pleasant to the
ear. Their use is, as we have said, to serve as sight-reading material,
not as performance pieces.
The software described in the report
was written in Java. Our reasons for choosing this particular language
were its portability and the availability of rich (and free) class
libraries, in particular graphic libraries. Consequently, the software
will run on any computer that supports Java Runtime Environment (JRE). |
