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:
- to promote meaningful approaches to evaluating music Ai;
- to see how music Ai research can benefit from considering traditional music, and how traditional music can benefit from music Ai research;
- to facilitate discussions about the ethics of music Ai research applied to traditional music practices.
How?
- BEFORE JULY 17, register your intent to participate by notifying the organizer.
- Build a system that generates slängpolskor.
- Have your system generate 1000 slängpolskor rendered as MIDI and in notation (such as ABC, musicXML, or staff).
- 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.
- BEFORE SEPTEMBER 25, email the organizer a link to download your generated collection and your technical document.
- Only one submission from each participant will be allowed.
Evaluation
The evaluation of submissions will proceed in the following way:
- Five tunes are selected at random from each submitted collection.
- The selected tunes are sent to all judges for review.
- 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.
- 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
- 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).
- Stage 4 Selected slängpolskor will be performed for a set of dancers, who will vote for their favorites (or to award no prize).