Project Research
Research focuses on three areas including typical strategies used in jazz harmony, collaborative ability of software, and Band in-a-Box
Jazz Harmony and Techniques
Jazz harmony in the 1940s–1960s is characterised by the use of a wide range of harmonic devices that increase colour, tension, and movement. Common techniques include ii–V–I progressions, tritone substitutions, secondary dominants, voice leading, and chromatic movement to help connect chords and create forward motion through their sequences.
Chords are frequently extended with major, minor, and dominant sevenths, with additional ninths, elevenths, and thirteenths providing further layers of tension and complexity.
Dominant chords are often altered through flattened or sharpened fifths and ninths, increasing the harmonic intensity before resolving. Chromatic movement is created through diminished chords, passing chords, and walking bass movement between harmonies, providing smoother transitions and increased harmonic interest.
Improvisation commonly draws on chord tones, arpeggios, chromatic approach notes, and blues-based melodic language, alongside rhythmic features such as swing, syncopation, and call-and-response phrasing. These techniques are used to create improvised melodies that remain close to the underlying harmonic structure of the music.
Full references available in separate section
Software Collaboration
Music software collaboration in can be understood as a spectrum based on how much creative input is required from the user versus the software.
Assistive tools are at the lowest end, where software simply executes user-defined ideas such as triggering chords. This level of tool supports workflow allowing the user to focus on creative decisions, with the software acting as a facilitator.
Interactive collaboration sits at the centre of the spectrum where software can suggest ideas based on rules, patterns, or style-based systems, and is based on user input. Examples include Scaler and Band-in-a-Box which generate chord progressions or accompaniment based on the user's input and provided parameters.
Generative systems represent the highest level of software collaboration, where complete musical material is produced based on prompts such as style or mood. These tools generate full musical ideas that the user can edit and refine. This positions tools such as Suno as a creative co-generator rather than a support tool.
Full references available in separate section
Band in a Box
Band-in-a-Box is an auto-arrangement system that generates complete musical backing tracks from standard chord symbols input by the user, along with a selected style. The software builds a full arrangement using pre-designed musical styles that simulate a live band, typically including drums, bass, piano and guitar.
A key feature is its extensive harmonic capability, allowing input of basic, extended, and altered jazz chords. Once a progression is entered, the software uses this as the framework to generate a style-based performance, including genre-specific elements such as walking bass lines, swing rhythms, and comping patterns associated with jazz practice.
The system includes a large style library with thousands of arrangements which can be filtered to enabling the user to quickly test different interpretations of the same harmonic material.
Outputs include lead sheets, MusicXML files, and high-quality audio files that can be exported for further editing or production in external software.