Game Theory Applications in Music Composition: an Approach to Musical Indeterminacy and Performer Choice

Abstract

This portfolio of compositions investigates the potential of incorporating game theory as an approach to musical indeterminacy and performer choice in the composition of ten authentic musical works. The research expands the application of game theory in instrumental composition to non-zero-sum games, cooperative games, and games of more than two players. Adaptations of The Prisoner's Dilemma, Shapley's and Shubik's Gloves Game, Selten's Chain Store Game, and Basu's Traveller's Dilemma, serve as conceptual frameworks for composition and live strategising. The portfolio explores concepts that emerge from choice like unintended consequences, and internal conflict, and models pieces inspired by scientific frameworks on the testing of hypotheses -- namely Basu's thesis on the Traveller's Dilemma, and Selten's deterrence theory. This research deviates from previous uses of game theory only as competition enabler or material generator, and sets games as subject matters in their own right and communicative tools for reflection on their societal and philosophical implications. Furthermore, the composer attempted to integrate decision-making in the game within musical decision-making and to convincingly amalgamate game, music, and text in creative practice. This portfolio also investigates the challenges of strategising as a performance act and attempts to tackle these, to create conditions for genuine, practical live strategising, and to facilitate communication of the relationship between game and music. Finally, promising implications for Chou's definition and taxonomy of ludic pieces as works involving game-like activities, and Katz's Beyond-Domain model on the creative processes of composers, emerge from the research outcomes. Specifically, this body of work indicates a possible correlation between the existence of ludus and performer engagement with the game in ludic pieces, and challenges Katz's Beyond-Domain model which does not distinguish practices with a dialectical relationship between the musical and the extra-musical from practices which do not establish such dialectics.

Date of Award	6 Jan 2025
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	The University of Manchester
Supervisor	Leonidas Koutsougeras (Supervisor) & Richard Whalley (Supervisor)