Creative Chord Sequence Generation for Electronic Dance Music

Abstract

This paper describes the theory and implementation of a digital audio workstation plug-in for chord sequence generation. The plug-in is intended to encourage and inspire a composer of electronic dance music to explore loops through chord sequence pattern definition, position locking and generation into unlocked positions. A basic cyclic first-order statistical model is extended with latent diatonicity variables which permits sequences to depart from a specified key. Degrees of diatonicity of generated sequences can be explored and parameters for voicing the sequences can be manipulated. Feedback on the concepts, interface, and usability was given by a small focus group of musicians and music producers.