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From: eliot@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Eliot Handelman)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: Music and AI
Message-ID: <10936@idunno.Princeton.EDU>
Date: 19 Jun 91 17:17:23 GMT
References: <23491@shlump.lkg.dec.com> <3084@lee.SEAS.UCLA.EDU>
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In article <3084@lee.SEAS.UCLA.EDU> bsmith@turing.seas.ucla.edu (Brian Smith) writes:
;                 However, the processes of creativity really aren't clearly
;understood, and perhaps we can learn something by trying to model artistic
;behavior with a computer.  After all, musical composition is really (being a
;bit oversimplistic here) just a very sophisticated planning system, is it not?

The problem is setting constraints for the planner, ie, what constitutes 
an admissable "move," so to speak. (Allowing a second simplification of
restricting possible musical actions, but that's like restricting yourself
to a couple of tom-toms -- the nature of problem isn't altered).  Musical 
constraints are exceptionally difficult to get a hold of, because they are 
cognitive, cultural and volatile, rather than formalistic and invariant. 
Almost certainly the same is true of creativity.

It's much more interesting to focus on the listener, because apprehension
is the simplest act of creativity.