Evolutionary Composition is my senior capstone project. The project's goal is to see what type of music a program can create using genetic algorithms and human curation. Specifically, the program will use human curation to create and evolve themes to the user's liking. First, the program generates a batch of melodies. Then, each of these tunes is played for the user. The user rates each melody on a scale from 0 to 5. An elitist selection algorithm picks the highest-scoring pieces for the next generation of music. The next population is created through mating and mutation. A cross-over function takes two parent melodies and returns two children. The first child contains [[First half of parent2's measures], [Second half of parent1's measures]]. The second child contains [[First half of parent1's measures], [Second half of parent2's measures]]. The mutation function mutates a parent melody by randomly pitch-shifting each note in the melody. The pitch-shifted melody is returned as the child. The algorithm repeats until the desired number of generations is satisfied.

The Evolutionary Composition program runs on Python 3.

• DEAP
• Numpy
• MIDO
• python-rtmidi

To run the program with no command-line args use

python3 main.py

To learn about the various command-line arguments use

python3 main.py -h -v

Evolutionary Composition can be configured in various ways.

• Verbosity: Outputs program's settings.
  Flags: '-v' || '--verbosity'

-v

• Outport: Sets the outport device for MIDO. If none is given, you will get the (system specific) default port.
  Flags: '-o' || '--outport'

-o "IAC Driver Bus 1"

• Key Signature: Sets the key signature for the program. Supported key signatures are ["Cb","Gb","Db","Ab","Eb","Bb","F","C","G","D","A","E","B","F#","C#"]
  Flags: '-k' || '--key_signature'

-k Gb 

• Tempo: Sets the tempo (in BPM) for the program. Range: [2,300]
  Flags: '-t' || '--tempo'

-t 100

• Backing Track: Enables a backing track. Turn on the track with True, False for off.
  Flags: '-b' || '--back_track'

-b t

• Arpeggio or Scale: Sets the backing track to play an ascending arpeggio or scale. True for arp, false for scale
  Flags: '-a' || '--arp_or_scale'

-a f

• Genetic Algorithm: Sets the GA to use. Supported GAs are eaSimple, eaMuPlusLambda, eaMuCommaLambda
  Flags: '-ga' || '--genetic_alg'

-ga "eaMuPlusLambda"

Each GA has its own specific parameters that can be configured.

• eaMuPlusLambda (𝜇 + 𝜆) Parameters: POPSIZE, NGEN, MU, LAMBDA_ CXPB, MUTPB, NGEN
• eaMuCommaLambda (𝜇 , 𝜆) Parameters: POPSIZE, NGEN, MU, LAMBDA_ CXPB, MUTPB, NGEN
• eaSimple (𝜇 , 𝜆) Parameters: POPSIZE, NGEN, CXPB, MUTPB, NGEN

• Pop size: Sets the number of melodies to generate in the initial population.
  Flags: '--popsize'

--popsize 10

• Ngen: ngen sets the number of generations the GA will run for.
  Flags: '--ngen'

--ngen 3

• Mu: sets the number of individuals to select for the next generation.
  Flags: '--mu'

--mu 3

• Lambda_: sets number of children to produce at each generation.
  Flags: '--lambda_'

--lambda_ 6

• cxpb: sets the probability that an offspring is produced by crossover.
  Flags: '--cxpb'

--cxpb 0.7

• mutb: sets the probability that an offspring is produced by mutation.
  Flags: '--mutb'

--mutb 0.3

Note: cxpb + mutpb should = 1.0