Jazz Improvisation Software--Free

[JonZ]

http://www.cs.hmc.edu/~keller/jazz/improvisor/

I came across this, and it looks interesting. But I haven't had time to experiment. It appears to have some pretty powerful features.

Does anyone want to take a look and review it?

[mando.player]

I downloaded it and spent a little time playing with it. The UI is a little wonky but I think there's potential here. All I've done so far is enter a chord progession and had it generate a solo. It sounded pretty good. The notes are different colors and I need to figure what that means. If they are scale degrees it could be helpful in analyzing what's been generated.

You can export everything to MIDI so this should play nice with other music apps.

[mando.player]

Black: Chord tones
Green: Color tones
Blue: Approach tones
Red: Outside tones

I plan on spending some more time with this app this weekend. Thanks for the tip Jon.

[JonZ]

It looks pretty robust for a freebe. I look forward to your analysis.

[Mark Robertson-Tessi]

I fooled with this program a while back, and it is interesting to see what it spits out. If nothing else, choosing different player "grammar" settings gives you solos which at least capture something of the difference between players. Try Dizzy vs. Miles and you'll see much fewer notes in the latter. Dizzy vs. Bird: there's more chord tones in the former.

I actually wrote a simple code a while ago that writes an improvisation over a set of chords and spits out ABC. The purpose was not to actually write breaks, but to see what assumptions would be needed in the code to produce something remotely listenable. There is frequent discussion here regarding how to improvise, and a great many bits of information (chord tones, scales, patterns, etc. etc.) But how does one synthesize all this? So I wrote a program that took some of that info and let the computer try to come up with something. Needless to say, it was not very successful, nor did I expect it to be. The only thing clear was that there are some subtle things going on in improvisation that can't be boiled down to chord tones and the like. Still, one of the main confirmations was the fact that for the break to sound less "computerish" there has to be attention to phrasing, and also how the chosen tones and the rhythm go together.

Nothing new there, perhaps, but it does suggest that the main focus of improve should be zoomed out further than the individual notes, and more attention be paid to phrasing and shape.

At any rate, I rarely heard anything compelling in the Improvisor software, nor in the code I wrote. Occasionally an interesting bit will pop out at random, but much of it seems disjoint. Maybe I'm biased by my skepticism for the whole idea of computer composed music! I even played them on the mando just to make sure it wasn't the MIDI aspect that made them sound computerized.

Anyway, if you want to see a sample improv from the program I wrote over the chords for whiskey before breakfast, take the following ABC and plug it in to the website
http://www.concertina.net/tunes_convert.html
Submit and it will generate the notes for you, and you can also play a MIDI file from the page too. Unfortunately, no chords will sound, so you'll have to play along or imagine them in your head.

X: 1
T: None
M: 4/4
L: 1/8
K: Dmaj
Q: 310
|^FGABdB^F2|D2B,D^FABd|g2ea^fgab|agede^cAG|^FGAG^F E^FA|dBAG^FEDB,|G,A,B,ED^FG^F|EGGED2EG|AGABABdB|d2 BdA2^FA|GEDE^FGA2|E^FE^CA,B,^CD|B,A,G,B,DB,A,G,|A, G,A,G,A,B,2G,|B,EDB,A,G,A,B,|^CB,^CD^FGEG|^FEDB,2G ,A,D|A,B,DE^FGA2|G2EGEDE^F|A2^FA^cde^c|dedBd2Bd|BG AB^FGGB|GBdegd'ab|aga^c'age2|d^fbabd'ba|^fabge2de| gba^fe2de|aged^cB^cd|^f2e2d^fa2|gg2^fae^fe|gb^fa^f e^fg|edB^FA4|

Cheers
MRT

[mando.player]

The one thing I think the Improvisor program did a good job with was phrasing. At least as good as BIAB.

[mando.player]

I haven't had too much time to play with the app yet, but I did stumble onto this Roadmap feature/mode:
http://www.cs.hmc.edu/~keller/jazz/i...Roadmap507.htm

It basically breaks down a tune into key centers. It also classifies the progression(s) within the key center and labels the transition type to the next key center. If its accurate this could be quite a helpful tool for learning how tunes are put together.

[JonZ]

It looks from the material on the web site that it was designed/used for some kind of academic study.

[JonZ]

I recently had another look at this program, and want to recommend it for those of you--particularly jazz musicians--who want to create practice tracks. The documentation is not great--it took me about a half hour to learn the basics, but it works well for a free program.

[swampstomper]

Wow, thanks JonZ. This is super-interesting, especially the "roadmap" feature where the program identifies sections of a piece with standard structure. This makes them much easier to remember. Once I figure out the UI I'll input "Flicking my Pick" and see if the program can figure out what might have been going through Jethro's mind...

[JonZ]

A lot of the features are above my head, but, for a quick and dirty way to make backup tracks, you can't beat the price. When you get into it a little bit, you will see that it can make random (but harmonically appropriate) chord substitutions, which makes using the tracks more interesting.

It is deffinately a jazz tool; I don't know how well it works for creating "folk" tracks with the correct tone and drive. (Test drive anyone?) One idea is that, given a free way to make tracks, users can start posting them as a resource on this site. For example Tune of the Week group could post a backing track for the week's tune. The program will save them as midi files.

[August Watters]

It looks from the material on the web site that it was designed/used for some kind of academic study.

Good point! Maybe there's more insight into the use of this software from two statements by the author:

"Harvey Mudd College does not offer a music major, but some students minor in music. The students generally excel in mathematics, engineering, and the sciences, and music seems to go along with these skills to a great degree."

"I give students assignments of writing out solos for one or two choruses of a tune that we happen to be studying that semester. For reasons I state elsewhere, I think this a better exercise than transcribing another person’s solo, regardless of how famous."

So the emphasis here seems to be on using jazz-like structures for composing melodies. That's quite a bit different from the title of this thread.

[WireBoy]

Good point! Maybe there's more insight into the use of this software from two statements by the author:

"Harvey Mudd College does not offer a music major, but some students minor in music. The students generally excel in mathematics, engineering, and the sciences, and music seems to go along with these skills to a great degree."

"I give students assignments of writing out solos for one or two choruses of a tune that we happen to be studying that semester. For reasons I state elsewhere, I think this a better exercise than transcribing another person’s solo, regardless of how famous."

So the emphasis here seems to be on using jazz-like structures for composing melodies. That's quite a bit different from the title of this thread.

Kudos for Harvey Mudd! My daughter graduated from there last year - chemistry major. ( She now is in grad school at Cal Tech.). While not a minor, She played her viola in the campus orchestra ( and chamber music groups) all four years. Sadly, she never has shown interest in Americana fiddle music. But Thankfully we never had any of that hip pity hop pity junk playing in my house.

[JonZ]

So the emphasis here seems to be on using jazz-like structures for composing melodies. That's quite a bit different from the title of this thread.

Many improvisation classes have students transcribe solos to learn how to improvise. He says he has students write there own instead. I think the idea is to have students slow down the process and think about the impact of each musical choice. Improvising is just composing on the fly.

The program does many things, and one of them is showing possible note choices for improvisation.

[August Watters]

Many improvisation classes have students transcribe solos to learn how to improvise. He says he has students write there own instead.

Fair enough, one can approach this any way that makes sense. But transcribing solos has always been an important part of the jazz tradition, and it predates formal jazz education. More importantly, transcribing (whether jazz, bluegrass, or just about any style) helps us learn the vocabulary, grammar, and syntax of the music we want to understand and be part of.

I wouldn't criticize another teacher's methods, but if you're not using this software in the context of the class it was created for, then you're probably not getting its full value. Probably the professor who wrote this software uses it as just one technique for getting students involved in jazz.

YMMV - but as a teacher I'm always aware that every step we take away from traditional methods through which a musical style was learned also runs the risk of creating distance from the heart and soul of the music.

[JonZ]

Perhaps. Yet there would not be jazz if people had not taken that risk. There is a continuum, with jazz as a style to be mastered and preserved on one end, and jazz as a mode of self-expression within a musical framework on the other, and every point betwixt.

[August Watters]

Jazz is always about self-expression within a musical framework, no?

[JonZ]

Yes, the question is how much freedom one has within the framework. Perhaps I misunderstood your meaning:

"...I'm always aware that every step we take away from traditional methods through which a musical style was learned also runs the risk of creating distance from the heart and soul of the music."

I thought you were saying that there is a stylistic framework outside which jazz musicians should not go. The old "Winton Marsalis v. John Zorn" debate. (A debate that I don't think either of them engage in.) Some go so far as to say that risk taking and challenging tradition are central to the heart and soul of jazz, and that hewing to traditions is killing jazz as an art form. (Not me--I'm a big tent guy.)

Still, there is no doubt that many inovators started by closely analyizing other people's playing.

[Miss Lonelyhearts]

Last night I was surfing YouTube and stumbled on a clip of Mark O'Connor sitting in with the Wynton Marsalis Quintet playing Sweet Georgia Brown: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELXtZmFpvPk

What I took away from this is that Wynton and the gang wandered much farther afield from the melody than O'Connor did, clearly riffing off the chord progression and substitutions. The guitar breaks didn't do much for me--too much grooving on scale and arpeggio patterns across the chords. O'Connor's second break was good. But then when Wynton and the sax player take off, it's a whole 'nother level. Musical phrases that roam all over, yet just (barely) enough reference back to the melody--or at least the tonal centers of the original phrases. Wynton's solos hit me as in a class all their own--free-range extreme musicality, stretching the tune to its limit but never losing it. Like you can hear him thinking all around the melody. I get that when listening to some of Chris Thile's solos, too.

I'm no jazz connoisseur, but to my ear, too often improvised solos neglect the tune in favor of stringing riffs together and the whole thing turns mechanical. Virtuosic, maybe, but still mechanical and formulaic. Seems the best improvisers know just how little of the tune they need to keep everything else they play relevant, so it's still an interpretation of the original piece, not wholly new and unrelated. Would be interesting to play with the app here and see how far you could winnow a tune down to the essential bits within a roaming solo....

[Miss Lonelyhearts]

Cross post with JonZ. Coincidence that Wynton came up.
And since I play more Irish music than anything else these days, I'm guessing *everyone* here is way more knowledgeable about jazz and improv than little ol' me.

[robert.najlis]

I haven't had too much time to play with the app yet, but I did stumble onto this Roadmap feature/mode:
http://www.cs.hmc.edu/~keller/jazz/i...Roadmap507.htm

It basically breaks down a tune into key centers. It also classifies the progression(s) within the key center and labels the transition type to the next key center. If its accurate this could be quite a helpful tool for learning how tunes are put together.

The roadmaps are based on the book by Conrad Cork: New Guide to Harmony with Lego Bricks and the follow up by John Elliot: Insights in Jazz. I strongly recommend both of them.

[JonZ]

It is a pretty sophisticated program to be giving away for free. You can also download a very extensive, chords-only, "Imaginary Book" (which is appropriate for me, since I "pretend" to play jazz).

[August Watters]

Perhaps I misunderstood your meaning:

"...I'm always aware that every step we take away from traditional methods through which a musical style was learned also runs the risk of creating distance from the heart and soul of the music."

I thought you were saying that there is a stylistic framework outside which jazz musicians should not go.

No, I don't believe that, and I don't take positions about where musicians should or shouldn't go. I was just expressing my skepticism that spending a lot of time focused on composing jazz solos is likely to lead to fluency in improvising them. Experimenting with new learning techniques is fun and can be very productive -- matter of fact, I'm deeply involved with that myself, writing new teaching materials that take advantage of how the ear works. But the importance of transcription is huge!

[Pete Martin]

But the importance of transcription is huge!

Single most important thing as told me by great players in ANY music style.

[JonZ]

I have been reading a lot about learning jazz recently, and I detect that there are several debates about the right way. I don't claim to understand it all, but there was one group who were against the "Abersold/Berklee" approach. I think they favored the afore-mentioned Lego Bricks approach. There are some staunch "transcriptions". There are "anti-scaleists" too--"never practice a sequence of notes you would not play in a song". "Game of Thrones" has nothing on the Jazz education world. Of course, everyone I know who works at a university says that the smaller the real-world stakes of what the department studies, the more petty the infighting. I suppose it is similar to the Café, where we debate sheet music/tab/ear learning, scroll or no scroll, expensive pick or cheap pick.

From watching Ken Burns, I know that a lot of the original, African-American jazz musicians could read and write music. But didn't a lot of them learn by ear, without actually transcribing, too? I am wondering in this day and age, where slow-down programs make ear learning so easy, what the additional benefit of writing out someone else's solo is.