All the best bands, bands of all kinds and music embrace improvisation in some form, from Miles Davis to Led Zeppelin to jam bands. Visit my Pandora.com site and compare the how live albums sound compare to studio albums. http://www.pandora.com/profile/craig.hamilton.newletters
I have observed, Rock Smith, a computer program, that teaches players how to copy exactly certain songs note for note. I suggest a musical program that teaches students to improvise on electronic instruments, like training wheels for a bike.
For instance, if you wanted to learn a jazz standard, such as one from the Real Book, there could be one aspect that could recognize mild scalar variations in play for the head of the song. A change in a note here or there in the head would improve one’s score.
Similarly, there could also be many ways for the computer to gauge features such as soloing, and accompaniment, other than the head.
1. Chording
2. Rhythmic syncopation
3. Pentatonic scales
4. Arpeggios
5. Modal soloing
6. Key changes
7. Lack of originality penalty
8. Chromatic movements
9. Combos that include kinds 1 through 8
The potentials are incredibly vast. There is more than this. Maybe another program might teach musical theory to practice before actually playing an improvised note.
In order for the computer to play along with the gamester, software engineers and musicians could piece together semi-original desired song parts, essentially jazz karaoke, that the computer could arrange for the purpose of algorithm play along, meaning that the computer would play semi-original music that would fit nicely with the musicians play. For instance, a computer could piece together perhaps 20, maybe 100, different versions of a song on the fly.
