A Grammatical Approach to Automatic Improvisation

We describe an approach to the automatic generation of convincing jazz melodies using probabilistic grammars. Uses of this approach include a software tool for assisting a soloist in the creation of a jazz solo over chord progressions. The method also shows promise as a means of automatically improvising complete solos in real-time. Our approach has been implemented and demonstrated in a free software tool. Keywords— jazz, improvisation, educational software, probabilistic context-free grammar, melody generator. I. INTRODUCTION

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