TY - JOUR AU - Widmer, Gerhard AU - Flossmann, Sebastian AU - Grachten, Maarten PY - 2009/07/07 Y2 - 2024/03/29 TI - YQX Plays Chopin JF - AI Magazine JA - AIMag VL - 30 IS - 3 SE - Articles DO - 10.1609/aimag.v30i3.2249 UR - https://ojs.aaai.org/aimagazine/index.php/aimagazine/article/view/2249 SP - 35 AB - The article is about AI research in the context of a complex artistic behavior: expressive music performance. A computer program is presented that learns to play piano with 'expression' and that even won an international computer piano performance contest. A superficial analysis of an expressive performance generated by the system seems to suggest creative musical abilities. After a critical discussion of the processes underlying this behavior, we abandon the question of whether the system is really creative, and turn to the true motivation that drives this research: to use AI methods to investigate and better understand music performance as a human creative behavior. A number of recent and current results from our research are briefly presented that indicate that machines can give us interesting insights into such a complex creative behavior, even if they may not be creative themselves. ER -