Readings in Music and Artificial Intelligence (Contemporary Music Studies)

Rating:
Summary: Good introduction on music and AI
Review: I was pleased to come across this book during my research for my master's thesis on music and artificial intelligence. Although there are a number of books on the subject, they tend to be collections of previously published articles or conference papers and are intended for an audience that already knows the subject of AI fairly well. This book, however, is not a compilation of articles, but a collection of chapters by various authors who were commissioned to write new material for the book. The result is a book with good introductory material in the field of AI and music, covering composition, analysis, knowledge representation, connectionism, and even music education/intelligent tutoring systems. At the end of each chapter, there is a bibliography pointing the reader towards more sources on that particular topic. I also think this would make a good textbook for an introductory class on AI and music for undergraduates (upper division) and graduate students that would appeal to all majors: theory and composition, musicology, and music education (and perhaps to a lesser extent, performance majors). I only wish this book had been available when I first began my research for my thesis - it would have made life a lot simpler! I highly recommend this book as the first book for any reader interested in this subject.

Rating:
Summary: Good introduction on music and AI
Review: I was pleased to come across this book during my research for my master's thesis on music and artificial intelligence. Although there are a number of books on the subject, they tend to be collections of previously published articles or conference papers and are intended for an audience that already knows the subject of AI fairly well. This book, however, is not a compilation of articles, but a collection of chapters by various authors who were commissioned to write new material for the book. The result is a book with good introductory material in the field of AI and music, covering composition, analysis, knowledge representation, connectionism, and even music education/intelligent tutoring systems. At the end of each chapter, there is a bibliography pointing the reader towards more sources on that particular topic. I also think this would make a good textbook for an introductory class on AI and music for undergraduates (upper division) and graduate students that would appeal to all majors: theory and composition, musicology, and music education (and perhaps to a lesser extent, performance majors). I only wish this book had been available when I first began my research for my thesis - it would have made life a lot simpler! I highly recommend this book as the first book for any reader interested in this subject.