Accomplice: Computer Accompaniment for Keyboard Performance

Roger Dannenberg

Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression

Abstract

Accomplice is a computer accompaniment system created for contemporary electronic music performance with a human keyboard performer. The motivation for computer accompaniment has always been to support expressive music performance by following a human performer. Accomplice introduces an interface, behavior, and output modes designed for flexibility and interactivity in live performance of experimental music, as opposed to a classical model of start-to-finish score following. Accomplice takes MIDI information from the performer, follows a MIDI score, and outputs MIDI, O2 and OSC control that is synchronized to the live performance and controls custom synthesizer, interactive software, robotic, or multimedia processes. To support this functionality, Accomplice runs on a laptop with a graphical interface to specify various modes of starting and cueing musical sections, enabling and adjusting accompaniment tracks, and controlling the responsiveness of the accompaniment. Accomplice is free and open-source software.

Citation

Roger Dannenberg. 2026. Accomplice: Computer Accompaniment for Keyboard Performance. Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.20784425 [PDF]

BibTeX Entry

@inproceedings{nime2026_140,
 abstract = {Accomplice is a computer accompaniment system created for contemporary electronic music performance with a human keyboard performer. The motivation for computer accompaniment has always been to support expressive music performance by following a human performer. Accomplice introduces an interface, behavior, and output modes designed for flexibility and interactivity in live performance of experimental music, as opposed to a classical model of start-to-finish score following. Accomplice takes MIDI information from the performer, follows a MIDI score, and outputs MIDI, O2 and OSC control that is synchronized to the live performance and controls custom synthesizer, interactive software, robotic, or multimedia processes. To support this functionality, Accomplice runs on a laptop with a graphical interface to specify various modes of starting and cueing musical sections, enabling and adjusting accompaniment tracks, and controlling the responsiveness of the accompaniment. Accomplice is free and open-source software.},
 address = {London, United Kingdom},
 articleno = {140},
 author = {Roger Dannenberg},
 booktitle = {Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression},
 doi = {10.5281/zenodo.20784425},
 editor = {Benedict Gaster and João Tragtenberg and Anna Xambó and Tom Mitchell},
 issn = {2220-4806},
 month = {June},
 note = {},
 numpages = {7},
 pages = {1144--1150},
 presentation-video = {https://youtu.be/1a7RAEI856k},
 title = {Accomplice: Computer Accompaniment for Keyboard Performance},
 track = {paper},
 url = {http://nime.org/proceedings/2026/nime2026_140.pdf},
 year = {2026}
}