Automatic Electronic Organ Reduction System Based on Melody Clustering Considering Melodic and Instrumental Characteristics

To maintain the artistic side of music, it is important that many people play it. However, musical arrangement is difficult and time-consuming for amateurs, so even good music is not arranged for instruments that relatively few people play. In this study, we propose an arrangement system that can easily generate scores for various musical instruments, with the aim of helping to keep music alive. Here, we target electronic organ arrangements that can represent a full score. Since such scores include a large number of instrumental parts, we summarize the melodies that play the same role using four features (pitch, harmony, note length, and timbre of the instrument). Next, we select a melody cluster for each part, considering the connections between the melodies and the characteristics of electronic organs. Finally, we adjust the score to make it easier to play on an electronic organ. We then conduct experiments to confirm whether the system can create arrangements that maintain the original piece's overall impression. Here, we compare our new arrangements of four pieces with the existing electronic organ scores. The results showed that the proposed arrangement system can create an electronic organ score from the full score.