1 Music Understanding by Computer

Although computer systems have found widespread application in music production, there remains a gap between the characteristicly precise and mechanical information processing of the computer and the more subtle and expressive processing performed by humans. In order for computer systems to become more useful to musicians, the human-computer interface must be raised from the mechanical and syntactic level of present systems toward a high-level concept-based dialog. The term ‘‘music understanding’’ is introduced to describe the recognition of pattern and structure in musical information. Applications of music understanding include music transcription and music performance systems. The general state of the art in music understanding and two specific interactive real-time performance systems are described.