# AI Methods in Algorithmic Composition: A Comprehensive Survey

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1402.0585 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/1402.0585/

## Key facts

- Cited by 12 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 4 Feb 2014.

## Built on by (most cited first, 12 of 12)

- [A Quantum Natural Language Processing Approach to Musical Intelligence](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.06741/) (2021)
- [Natural Language Processing Methods for Symbolic Music Generation and Information Retrieval: a Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.17467/) (2024)
- [Survey on the Evaluation of Generative Models in Music](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.05104/) (2025)
- [A Survey of Deep Learning Audio Generation Methods](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.00146/) (2024)
- [IteraTTA: An interface for exploring both text prompts and audio priors in generating music with text-to-audio models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.13005/) (2023)
- [The Impact of Generative Artificial Intelligence on Market Equilibrium: Evidence from a Natural Experiment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.07071/) (2023)
- [The artificial synesthete: Image-melody translations with variational autoencoders](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.02953/) (2021)
- [Open Challenges in Musical Metacreation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.14734/) (2022)
- [MuseBarControl: Enhancing Fine-Grained Control in Symbolic Music Generation through Pre-Training and Counterfactual Loss](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.04331/) (2024)
- [Expressive Music Data Processing and Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.11896/) (2025)
- [Apollo: An Interactive Environment for Generating Symbolic Musical Phrases using Corpus-based Style Imitation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.14055/) (2025)
- [From local kernels to global form: modeling the emergence of musical content](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.24660/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Algorithmic composition is the partial or total automation of the process of music composition by using computers. Since the 1950s, different computational techniques related to Artificial Intelligence have been used for algorithmic composition, including grammatical representations, probabilistic methods, neural networks, symbolic rule-based systems, constraint programming and evolutionary algorithms. This survey aims to be a comprehensive account of research on algorithmic composition, presenting a thorough view of the field for researchers in Artificial Intelligence.