Low-resource symbolic music generation using transformers and chord identification heuristic

Music generation using computers is a task that while interesting, has received comparatively little attention compared to more mainstream problems. With recent advances in deep learning methods, it affords music generation researchers a new range of tools to apply to the cause. One of these is t...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Chio, Ting Kiat
Other Authors: Kong Wai-Kin Adams
Format: Final Year Project (FYP)
Language:English
Published: Nanyang Technological University 2021
Subjects:
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/10356/148307
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author Chio, Ting Kiat
author2 Kong Wai-Kin Adams
author_facet Kong Wai-Kin Adams
Chio, Ting Kiat
author_sort Chio, Ting Kiat
collection NTU
description Music generation using computers is a task that while interesting, has received comparatively little attention compared to more mainstream problems. With recent advances in deep learning methods, it affords music generation researchers a new range of tools to apply to the cause. One of these is the Transformer, an Attention-driven model that has had considerable success in modelling sequential data, beating out once state-of-the-art models such as Long-Short Term Memory models. Even though there are existing efforts to apply Transformer models to the music generation task, the application of music domain knowledge is still lacking. Models are still largely trained on data that conveys only pitch, with information underlying the data such as chord progressions largely being unattended to. The purpose of this research is to test if the inclusion of chord progression labels can help improve model performance in the task of music generation, with the goal of producing more realistic and pleasant-sounding pieces. A template-mask method was used to quickly label large sets of pianoroll data, before the data was converted into a MIDI-like format with the inclusion of Chord events to represent chords in a chord progression. A generator Transformer based off the GPT-2 model was then trained on this data. By observing the pieces generated by the model, we were able to identify convincing signs that the model was able to learn the concept of chords and chord progressions, as well as produce pieces that have more recurring structure due to its understanding of these latent structures of music.
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spelling ntu-10356/1483072021-04-29T08:17:34Z Low-resource symbolic music generation using transformers and chord identification heuristic Chio, Ting Kiat Kong Wai-Kin Adams School of Computer Science and Engineering AdamsKong@ntu.edu.sg Engineering::Computer science and engineering::Computing methodologies::Artificial intelligence Visual arts and music::Music Music generation using computers is a task that while interesting, has received comparatively little attention compared to more mainstream problems. With recent advances in deep learning methods, it affords music generation researchers a new range of tools to apply to the cause. One of these is the Transformer, an Attention-driven model that has had considerable success in modelling sequential data, beating out once state-of-the-art models such as Long-Short Term Memory models. Even though there are existing efforts to apply Transformer models to the music generation task, the application of music domain knowledge is still lacking. Models are still largely trained on data that conveys only pitch, with information underlying the data such as chord progressions largely being unattended to. The purpose of this research is to test if the inclusion of chord progression labels can help improve model performance in the task of music generation, with the goal of producing more realistic and pleasant-sounding pieces. A template-mask method was used to quickly label large sets of pianoroll data, before the data was converted into a MIDI-like format with the inclusion of Chord events to represent chords in a chord progression. A generator Transformer based off the GPT-2 model was then trained on this data. By observing the pieces generated by the model, we were able to identify convincing signs that the model was able to learn the concept of chords and chord progressions, as well as produce pieces that have more recurring structure due to its understanding of these latent structures of music. Bachelor of Engineering (Computer Science) 2021-04-29T08:17:34Z 2021-04-29T08:17:34Z 2021 Final Year Project (FYP) Chio, T. K. (2021). Low-resource symbolic music generation using transformers and chord identification heuristic. Final Year Project (FYP), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. https://hdl.handle.net/10356/148307 https://hdl.handle.net/10356/148307 en application/pdf Nanyang Technological University
spellingShingle Engineering::Computer science and engineering::Computing methodologies::Artificial intelligence
Visual arts and music::Music
Chio, Ting Kiat
Low-resource symbolic music generation using transformers and chord identification heuristic
title Low-resource symbolic music generation using transformers and chord identification heuristic
title_full Low-resource symbolic music generation using transformers and chord identification heuristic
title_fullStr Low-resource symbolic music generation using transformers and chord identification heuristic
title_full_unstemmed Low-resource symbolic music generation using transformers and chord identification heuristic
title_short Low-resource symbolic music generation using transformers and chord identification heuristic
title_sort low resource symbolic music generation using transformers and chord identification heuristic
topic Engineering::Computer science and engineering::Computing methodologies::Artificial intelligence
Visual arts and music::Music
url https://hdl.handle.net/10356/148307
work_keys_str_mv AT chiotingkiat lowresourcesymbolicmusicgenerationusingtransformersandchordidentificationheuristic