Navigating through Compositional Space: The Creativity Corridor

This paper discusses some aspects of the traditional compositional process in music. The process is likened to a planning or navigational task and is described through a concept borrowed from the Artificial Intelligence field: the idea of a state space within which a rule-based system operates. The concept of musical state space is postulated and the compositional process described in terms of moves through this space using different planning horizons. The importance of the short-term planning horizon in the creation of an individual style is highlighted, resulting in the definition of a "creativity corridor." An individual short-term planning style is thought to be an essential pre-requisite to handling the vast musical state space in a meaningful way. Longer term planning horizons are thought to be more concerned with quality of output.