2. Design Principles
Gest is conceptually grounded around a few musical axioms, with varying degrees of truthfulness.
As far as Gest is concerned, Music is...
...continuous in performance, discrete in instruction.
When it is written down, music gets turned into notes. Notes are just that, notes for human musicians to interpret. Similar to 2d maps of the world, music notation distorts the music it is trying to represent. Notation systems could (understandably) leave one to believe that music is form that can be neatly decomposed into discrete components. In reality, music is a very continuous medium. In order to perform music beautifully (computer or human), one must do so in a fluid manner.
...rhythmically proportional.
Rhythms in music are perceived to be proportional to an underlying implied or explicit pulse (a "beat"). In most situations, these relationships can be represented in terms of whole-integer ratios. However, performed rhythms do not precisely follow these ratios. The amount of imprecision, and the way rhythms push and pull at these underlying ratios is what is often referred to as "feel" or "groove".
...a perceptual subset of speech in music.
The way we listen to music is cognitively very similar to the way we listen to speech. Music that is most moving works because of it's resemblence to that of an emotive voice.
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