A Functional Taxonomy of Music Generation Systems
This work provides a foundational taxonomy for researchers and practitioners in music generation, though it is incremental as it organizes existing knowledge rather than introducing new methods.
The authors tackled the lack of a clear framework for categorizing automatic music generation systems by proposing a functional taxonomy based on design purposes, which reveals inter-relatedness among systems and contrasts with method-based surveys.
Digital advances have transformed the face of automatic music generation since its beginnings at the dawn of computing. Despite the many breakthroughs, issues such as the musical tasks targeted by different machines and the degree to which they succeed remain open questions. We present a functional taxonomy for music generation systems with reference to existing systems. The taxonomy organizes systems according to the purposes for which they were designed. It also reveals the inter-relatedness amongst the systems. This design-centered approach contrasts with predominant methods-based surveys and facilitates the identification of grand challenges to set the stage for new breakthroughs.