Malakai: Music That Adapts to the Shape of Emotions

This is a strange and exciting time for computer-generated music. The idea of computer-generated musical composition has captured the public imagination, as far back as Kurzweil's demonstration of a pattern-based composer on live TV in 1965[1]. Since then, improvements in technology and composition tools have created whole musical genres based around computer-generated compositions, and have resulted in a vast library of algorithmic compositional techniques. Furthermore, in the past few decades, interactive media such as games and virtual reality have resulted in a demand for music that can adapt to dynamic circumstances presented within the interactive medium. Finally, the advent of ML music models such as Google Magenta's MusicVAE[6] now allow us to extract and replicate compositional features from otherwise complex datasets. These models allow computational composers to parameterize abstract variables such as style and mood. By leveraging these models and combining them with procedural algorithms from the last few decades, it is possible to create a dynamic song that composes music in real-time to accompany interactive experiences [10]. Malakai is a tool that helps users of varying skill levels create, listen to, remix and share such dynamic songs. Using Malakai, a Composer can create a dynamic song that can be interacted with by a Listener.