FreshJam: Suggesting Continuations of Melodic Fragments in a Specific Style

Abstract

Imagine that a budding composer suffers from writer's block partway through devising a melody. A system called FreshJam is demonstrated, which offers a solution to this problem in the form of an interactive composition assistant; an algorithm that analyzes the notes composed so far, makes a comparison with an indexed corpus of existing music, and suggests a possible next note by choosing randomly among continuations of matched melody fragments. We provide a demonstration of FreshJam as an aid in stylistic composition, and of its potential to be more iterative than existing composition assistants such as PG Music's Band in a Box or Microsoft's Songsmith.