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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Ebrahimzadeh, Maral, Bernardes, Gilberto, Stober, Sebastian
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.19342
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author Ebrahimzadeh, Maral
Bernardes, Gilberto
Stober, Sebastian
author_facet Ebrahimzadeh, Maral
Bernardes, Gilberto
Stober, Sebastian
contents State-of-the-art symbolic music generation models have recently achieved remarkable output quality, yet explicit control over compositional features, such as tonal tension, remains challenging. We propose a novel approach that integrates a computational tonal tension model, based on tonal interval vector analysis, into a Transformer framework. Our method employs a two-level beam search strategy during inference. At the token level, generated candidates are re-ranked using model probability and diversity metrics to maintain overall quality. At the bar level, a tension-based re-ranking is applied to ensure that the generated music aligns with a desired tension curve. Objective evaluations indicate that our approach effectively modulates tonal tension, and subjective listening tests confirm that the system produces outputs that align with the target tension. These results demonstrate that explicit tension conditioning through a dual-level beam search provides a powerful and intuitive tool to guide AI-generated music. Furthermore, our experiments demonstrate that our method can generate multiple distinct musical interpretations under the same tension condition.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2511_19342
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Explicit Tonal Tension Conditioning via Dual-Level Beam Search for Symbolic Music Generation
Ebrahimzadeh, Maral
Bernardes, Gilberto
Stober, Sebastian
Sound
Artificial Intelligence
State-of-the-art symbolic music generation models have recently achieved remarkable output quality, yet explicit control over compositional features, such as tonal tension, remains challenging. We propose a novel approach that integrates a computational tonal tension model, based on tonal interval vector analysis, into a Transformer framework. Our method employs a two-level beam search strategy during inference. At the token level, generated candidates are re-ranked using model probability and diversity metrics to maintain overall quality. At the bar level, a tension-based re-ranking is applied to ensure that the generated music aligns with a desired tension curve. Objective evaluations indicate that our approach effectively modulates tonal tension, and subjective listening tests confirm that the system produces outputs that align with the target tension. These results demonstrate that explicit tension conditioning through a dual-level beam search provides a powerful and intuitive tool to guide AI-generated music. Furthermore, our experiments demonstrate that our method can generate multiple distinct musical interpretations under the same tension condition.
title Explicit Tonal Tension Conditioning via Dual-Level Beam Search for Symbolic Music Generation
topic Sound
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.19342