Planning Human-Computer Improvisation

Overview & Synopsis

Improvisation intrinsically carries a dialectic between spontaneity/reactivity and long-term planning/organization. This paper transposes this dialectic to interactive human-computer improvisation where the computer has to interleave various generative processes. They require different levels of prior knowledge, and follow a coarser improvisation plan driven by real-time interactions with the musicians. We propose a time-aware extensible architecture allowing the temporal coordination of different improvisation strategies. It integrates various generative strategies capitalizing on the system Improtek into the high-level structure provided by the language associated to the score follower Antescofo. The resulting framework manages the musical events, the triggering of generative processes at different time scales and the declarative specification of improvisation plans driven by the occurrence of complex events.