An AI music engine, as a new kind of instrument

Exciting article on a concert with Bill Manaris’s system for interactive music recreation. I really like the idea of it as “a new kind of instrument,” and I love Chris Starr’s comments about computing as a form of literacy for everybody, including arts majors.

“It’s like a whole different instrument,” Tan said of the Monterey Mirror.

Manaris said the system is an example of how computer science can be merged with the arts. The college this fall launched a new computing and the arts major, he said. Already, more than 30 undergraduate students have signed on.

Chris Starr, chairman of the college’s computer science department, said the department is trying to engage more students in computer science by merging it with other disciplines, such as business, analytics and music.

“We’re attracting a new kind of student that is technically competent and creative,” Starr said, “not just one or the other.”

He also said he thinks computer science now is a “foundation discipline,” much like literacy was in the 19th and 20th centuries. “There isn’t a single discipline that doesn’t have a software competency aspect,” Starr said.

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