Musical Agents Tutorial
This full-day tutorial at AIMC 2025 introduced musical agents as autonomous AI systems for composition, improvisation, and interactive performance, situating them within the context of musical metacreation. It presented and demonstrated several agent architectures—including MASOM, MACAT/MACataRT, Dicy2/OpenTuning, Musebots, CCCP, and an LLM-based agent—through both conceptual overviews and live artistic examples.
Venue: Bruxelles, Belgium, at AIMC 2025
Coordinators: Philippe Pasquier & Keon Ju Maverick Lee
Presenters
- Philippe Pasquier (Metacreation Lab, Simon Fraser University)
- Keon Ju Maverick Lee (Metacreation Lab, Simon Fraser University)
- Jérôme Nika (STMS Lab – IRCAM)
- Balthazar Bujard (STMS Lab – IRCAM)
- Arne Eigenfeldt (School of Contemporary Arts, Simon Fraser University)
- Notto J. W. Thelle (Makerspace – Oslo Metropolitan University)
- Bernt Isak Wærstad (Freelance artist – Oslo / Nairobi)
- Oliver Bown (School of Art & Design, University of New South Wales)
Program
Introduction to the tutorial and presenters
15 min (morning) – Everyone (led by Philippe Pasquier)
Introduction to musical agents: ontology and survey
45 min + 5 min Q&A (morning) – Philippe Pasquier
Slides (PDF): Session 1 Slides
MASOM and MACAT/MACataRT, including a plan for the new MIDI-based agent
30 min + 5 min Q&A (morning) – Keon Ju Maverick Lee
Slides (PDF): Session 2 Slides
Artistic applications of MASOM, MACAT, and MACataRT
20 min + 5 min Q&A (morning) – Philippe Pasquier
Slides (PDF): Session 3 Slides
Dicy2 and its artistic application
45 min + 5 min Q&A (morning) – Jérôme Nika
Slides (PDF): Session 4 Slides
OpenTuning – tuning musical agents with curated stems
30 min + 5 min Q&A (afternoon) – Balthazar Bujard and Jérôme Nika
Slides (PDF): Session 5 Slides
Artistic collaborations with Musebots
20 min + 5 min Q&A (afternoon) – Arne Eigenfeldt
Slides (PDF): Session 6 Slides
Introduction to CCCP and training musical agents on small datasets
45 min + 5 min Q&A (afternoon) – Notto J. W. Thelle and Bernt Isak Wærstad
Slides (PDF): Session 7 Slides
Music of the Sails – LLM musical agent as data interpreter
30 min + 5 min Q&A (afternoon) – Oliver Bown
Slides (Video): Session 8 Video
Reference for Citation:
APA style format:
Lee, K. J. M., Pasquier, P., Nika, J., Bujard, B., Eigenfeldt, A., Thelle, N. J. W. T., Wærstad, B. I., & Bown, O. (2025, September 10). Musical Agents Tutorial. The AI Music Creativity Conference (AIMC), Brussels, Belgium. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17303212
Bibtex format:
@inproceedings{musicalagentworkshop,
title={Musical Agents Tutorial},
author={Lee, Keon Ju Maverick and Pasquier, Philippe and Nika, J{\'e}r{\^o}me and Bujard, Balthazar and Eigenfeldt, Arne and Thelle, Notto JW and W{\ae}rstad, Bernt Isak and Bown, Oliver},
booktitle={Proceedings of AI Music Creativity ({AIMC}) conference},
year={2025},
}
Related websites:
