How to Make Music Sound Human

A study by physicist Holger Hennig (Harvard University) has implications for how to humanize computer-generated music.

When two musicians play a duet, Hennig found, their rhythmic deviations and the interaction of these deviations follow repeating patterns.

Based on his study, Hennig has developed a model that introduces patterns of deviations into the beat of computer-generated music. “The model that I built of course couldn’t replace a musician; it can only serve as a starting point and maybe lead to new tools,” he says.  

Read Science's coverage.