README.md

Neural Noise

Generate music snippets using Recurrent Neural Networks and display them on the web.

Introduction

Neural Noise is a series of Python scripts that interact with external programs in order to:

1. Generate a training set of music represented as character data, using ABC notation or some variation thereof;
2. Train a Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) with the data, using the excellent char-rnn package;
3. Generate new music snippets using checkpoints output by char-rnn;
   1. Create companion MIDI files and sheet music PNGs for each of these snippets using abcmidi and abcm2ps;
   2. Store the snippets, MIDI files and metadata in a MongoDB instance; and
4. Finally, allow the user to randomly browse the new snippets using a web interface.

This is a complicated mish-mash (hack) of software, and getting it running is not for the faint of heart. Still, in this README we will attempt to document the complete set of steps that were used in installing char-rnn, massaging the training data, running the training, generating the snippets, and finally getting the web interface up and running.

Instructions

(coming soon)