In Fleeting Visions: Deep Neural Music Fickle Play

Abstract

We describe a series of short music pieces that is generated in a semi-improvised manner by a computer, using deep representations and temporal memory model constructed from learning a corpus of piano works by Sergei Prokofiev. Inspired by Prokofiev's piece of a similar name, this work explores imaginative capabilities of generative music machine through a series of passing-by sonic visions triggered by fleeting activations of the underlying musical network from a musician performer input. Unlike most other common machine learning and neural music compositions that explore stylistic imitation, the impetus here is to provide a rainbow of unimagined possibilities enabling creative human intervention and interaction with a complex system, realized in a series of improvisations, each with a different form, texture and character.