Ai Music Generation Challenge 2021

is announced!

In the style of slängpolska

What?

Build an artificial system that generates the most plausible slängpolska – a traditional dance form from Scandinavia. Many examples of slängpolska can be found here. Up to two prizes will be awarded, and a performance of the best ones will occur in late 2021 in Stockholm, Sweden. The panel of judges consists of four (human) experts in Scandinavian traditional music and performance. (See a summary of the 2020 Challenge here.)

Why?

This challenge has three aims:

1. to promote meaningful approaches to evaluating music Ai;
2. to see how music Ai research can benefit from considering traditional music, and how traditional music can benefit from music Ai research;
3. to facilitate discussions about the ethics of music Ai research applied to traditional music practices.

How?

1. BEFORE JULY 17, register your intent to participate by notifying the organizer.
2. Build a system that generates slängpolskor.
3. Have your system generate 1000 slängpolskor rendered as MIDI and in notation (such as ABC, musicXML, or staff).
4. Write a brief technical document describing how you built your system, presenting some of its features and outcomes, and linking to your code and models for reproducibility.
5. BEFORE SEPTEMBER 25, email the organizer a link to download your generated collection and your technical document.
6. Only one submission from each participant will be allowed.

Evaluation

The evaluation of submissions will proceed in the following way:

1. Five tunes are selected at random from each submitted collection.
2. The selected tunes are sent to all judges for review.
3. Stage 1 Each judge will review the acceptability of each tune according to the following:

• If plagiarism detected, reject and do not review.
• If meter is not characteristic of a slängpolska, reject and do not review.
• If rhythm is not characteristic of a slängpolska, reject and do not review.

4. Stage 2 Each judge will rate on a scale of 1–5 the acceptable tunes along the following qualities:

• Danceability
• Stylistic coherence
• Formal coherence
• Playability

5. Stage 3 Each judge will present to the other judges the best tunes from their collections, and together will decide which are the best slängpolskor (or to award no prize).
6. Stage 4 Selected slängpolskor will be performed for a set of dancers, who will vote for their favorites (or to award no prize).