IF YOUR performance of a Beethoven concerto would have the composer rolling over in his grave, take heart. There鈥檚 a new computer orchestra that can accompany you while you practise, no matter how novel your interpretation of the piece.
Every musician has their own idiosyncratic style, and this can easily confuse conventional electronic accompaniment systems. The software tries to match what you are playing to an electronic version of the score held in memory. Once it has found a match, it begins playing the accompaniment. But deviate from the score by as little as lengthening a note, and these programs get seriously confused. 鈥淥nce they get lost, they just go off on their merry way,鈥� says Chris Raphael, a mathematician at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
To solve the problem, Raphael developed a system that can learn a particular performer鈥檚 style. You simply feed example scores into the computer鈥檚 memory, and then play each piece. The computer records the notes and checks them against the score to work out your typical style of interpretation. To play a new piece of music, you simply add it to the computer鈥檚 memory. As you play, the system follows the notes and plays the accompaniment in time, no matter how flamboyant your style.
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