MaxAnnealing: A Tool for Algorithmic Composition Based on Simulated Annealing

Musical composition can be roughly viewed as a search for the best solution among a nite-although huge-universe of possibilities. Some of the algorithmic compositional techniques try to simulate the act of composing doing this search automatically. However, this approach has two major problems. The rst one is the hardness of depicting aesthetic concepts through mathematical rules. The second problem is the low eeciency of the exhaustive search among all possible solutions. The \Simulated Annealing" algorithm-rst proposed in 1]-presents very good results on nding the optimal solution for many combinatorial problems eeciently (in polynomial time). In this paper we present an adaptation of this algorithm to the problem of algorithmic composition. We then discuss some possibilities regarding goal functions to this algorithm and describe MaxAnnealing, a tool designed to help composers and musicologists study the possibility of deening aesthetic concepts through mathematical rules. The system is implemented in the MAX programming environment.