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Published in: The Computer Games Journal 1/2019

31-08-2018

RNN Composition of Thematically Diverse Video Game Melodies

Author: Spencer Lee Churchill

Published in: The Computer Games Journal | Issue 1/2019

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Abstract

Historically, creative action to the extent of composing music was exclusive to humans. However, machine learning is challenging prior paradigms by leading computers to the frontier of human-level intelligence. Integration between computers and the arts began in 1951 when Alan Turing transposed music for a computer to perform (National Computing Laboratory, Manchester, 1951). Recently, considerable progress has been made due to breakthroughs in both the graphics processing unit and deep learning in the early 2000s. Most efforts emphasize melodic and harmonic styles (Hadjeres G, Pachet F, Nielsen F, in Deepbach: a steerable model for bach chorales generation, arXiv preprint arXiv:​1612.​01010, 2016; Huang A, Raymond W, in Deep learning for music, arXiv preprint arXiv:​1606.​04930, 2016), but there is little progress in thematic variation within a genre. By utilizing Google’s Magenta, I trained a deep recurrent network to model strongly thematic melodies by using a diverse corpus of video game music. This research challenges the capabilities of recurrent neural networks since throughout a game many themes are presented, ranging from war, defeat, and victory, to love and death. The aesthetics of music are ultimately subjective; nevertheless, my analysis, to mitigate sociocultural biases in music, evaluates generated songs on modulation, strength of rhythm, and repetition. This deep sequence-based model, trained on 2933 video game melodies, recognized unique motifs and composed compelling and distinct themes.

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Appendix
Available only for authorised users
Footnotes
1
Appendix 4, 2.1.1.
 
2
“Video Game Music Archive.” VGMusic—31,684 Game Music MIDI Files, Shane Evans, www.​vgmusic.​com/​. Accessed 3 June 2017.
 
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4
Plans, David and Morelli, Davide. (2012). Experience-Driven Procedural Music Generation for Games. Computational Intelligence and AI in Games, IEEE Transactions on. 4. 192–198. https://​doi.​org/​10.​1109/​tciaig.​2012.​2212899.
 
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Pythagoras. “Musica Universalis.” Harmony of the Spheres, 6th Century BCE.
 
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Euclid. “Στοιχεῖα Stoicheia.” The Elements, 300 BCE.
 
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Ivakhnenko, Alekseĭ Grigorʹevich, and Valentin Grigorévich Lapa. Cybernetic predicting devices. CCM Information Corporation, 1965.
 
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Eck, Douglas. “Magenta.” Magenta, Google, 2016 www.​magenta.​tensorflow.​org/​. Accessed 27 Aug. 2017.
 
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Roberts, Adam. “Tensorflow/Magenta.” GitHub, Google, 9 June 2017, www.​github.​com/​tensorflow/​magenta/​blob/​master/​magenta/​models/​melody_​rnn/​melody_​rnn_​model.​py. Accessed 29 June 2017.
 
11
Appendix 4, 3.3.1.
 
12
Appendix 1: Video Game MIDIs.
 
13
Hawthorne, Curtis. “Tensorflow/Magenta.” GitHub, Google, 30 Oct. 2017, www.​github.​com/​tensorflow/​magenta/​blob/​master/​magenta/​scripts/​convert_​dir_​to_​note_​sequences.​py. Accessed 5 Nov. 2017.
 
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Appendix 3, Song 4 (Note Breakdown).
 
16
Turner, J. R., Carroll, D. and Courtney, H. (1983), Cardiac and Metabolic Responses to “Space Invaders”: An Instance of Metabolically-Exaggerated Cardiac Adjustment? Psychophysiology, 20: 544–549. https://​doi.​org/​10.​1111/​j.​1469-8986.​1983.​tb03010.​x.
 
17
Churchill, Spencer L. “spencerchurchill/ee.” GitHub, 10 Sept. 2017, www.​github.​com/​spencerchurchill​/​ee/​midi. Accessed 4 June 2017.
 
18
Appendix 2, MIDI Size Sorter.
 
19
Appendix 4, 3.1.1.
 
20
Appendix 4, 3.2.1.
 
21
Roberts, Adam. “Tensorflow/Magenta.” GitHub, Google, 23 May 2017, www.​github.​com/​tensorflow/​magenta/​blob/​master/​magenta/​models/​melody_​rnn/​melody_​rnn_​generate.​py. Accessed 22 June 2017.
 
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Mao, Huanru Henry, Taylor Shin, and Garrison Cottrell. "DeepJ: Style-specific music generation." Semantic Computing (ICSC), 2018 IEEE 12th International Conference on. IEEE, 2018.
 
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Metadata
Title
RNN Composition of Thematically Diverse Video Game Melodies
Author
Spencer Lee Churchill
Publication date
31-08-2018
Publisher
Springer New York
Published in
The Computer Games Journal / Issue 1/2019
Electronic ISSN: 2052-773X
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s40869-018-0063-x

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