François Pachet (born 10 January 1964) is a French
scientist
A scientist is a person who Scientific method, researches to advance knowledge in an Branches of science, area of the natural sciences.
In classical antiquity, there was no real ancient analog of a modern scientist. Instead, philosophers engag ...
, composer and director of the
Spotify
Spotify (; ) is a List of companies of Sweden, Swedish Music streaming service, audio streaming and media service provider founded on 23 April 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. , it is one of the largest providers of music streaming services ...
Creator Technology Research Lab. Before joining Spotify he led
Sony
is a Japanese multinational conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at Sony City in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. The Sony Group encompasses various businesses, including Sony Corporation (electronics), Sony Semiconductor Solutions (i ...
Computer Science Laboratory in
Paris
Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...
. He is one of the pioneers of
computer music
Computer music is the application of computing technology in music composition, to help human composers create new music or to have computers independently create music, such as with algorithmic composition programs. It includes the theory and ...
closely linked to
artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...
, especially in the field of
machine improvisation and style modelling. He has been elected
ECCAI Fellow in 2014.
Education
Pachet graduated from
École des ponts ParisTech
École or Ecole may refer to:
* an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée)
* École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France
* Éco ...
in
Civil Engineering
Civil engineering is a regulation and licensure in engineering, professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including public works such as roads ...
, and
Computer Science
Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...
in 1987, majoring
Applied Mathematics
Applied mathematics is the application of mathematics, mathematical methods by different fields such as physics, engineering, medicine, biology, finance, business, computer science, and Industrial sector, industry. Thus, applied mathematics is a ...
. He spent 18 months as lecturer at
Kuala Lumpur
Kuala Lumpur (KL), officially the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur, is the capital city and a Federal Territories of Malaysia, federal territory of Malaysia. It is the largest city in the country, covering an area of with a census population ...
at the
University of Malaya
The Universiti Malaya (lit 'University of Malaya'; abbreviated UM) is a public university, public research university located in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It is the oldest Malaysian institution of higher education, and was the only university in ...
in 1987–1988. He obtained a PhD from
Pierre and Marie Curie University
Pierre and Marie Curie University ( , UPMC), also known as Paris VI, was a public research university in Paris, France, from 1971 to 2017. The university was located on the Jussieu Campus in the Latin Quarter of the 5th arrondissement of Paris, ...
in
Computer Science
Computer science is the study of computation, information, and automation. Computer science spans Theoretical computer science, theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, and information theory) to Applied science, ...
, (His thesis was "Knowledge representation with objects and rules: the NéOpus system", supervised by Jean-François Perrot).
He spent 1 year as post-doc in
Montréal
Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...
at
Université du Québec à Montréal
The (UQAM; ), is a French language, French-language public university, public research university based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is the largest constituent element of the system.
UQAM was founded on April 9, 1969, by the government o ...
, where he worked on the Cyc project Common sense representation, Douglas Lenat, MCC), with the help of Hafedh Mili professor at
UQAM.
In 1997, he got his habilitation diploma on the subject: "Object-oriented languages and knowledge representation" at University Pierre et Marie Curie.
He was auditeur at the 58th national session of Institut des Hautes Etudes en Défense Nationale, in 2006, and was appointed Colonel in 2007 in the "réserve citoyenne" (French Air Force).
Experiences
In 1993, he was appointed Assistant Professor (in French, "Maitre de conférences"), at Pierre and Marie Curie University until 1997 in Computer Science, Research and Teaching.
In 1997, Pachet moved to Sony-CSL (Computer Science Laboratory) Paris. He started a research activity on music and artificial intelligence. His team has authored and pioneered many technologies (about 35 patents) about electronic music distribution, audio feature extraction and music interaction.
He was appointed director of Sony Computer Science Laboratories in 2014. The CSL (the branch of Sony-CSL
Tokyo
Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...
) is dedicated to basic research in computer science; it was created by
Luc Steels
Luc Steels (born in 1952) is a Belgian scientist and artist. Steels is considered a pioneer of Artificial Intelligence in Europe who has made contributions to expert systems, behavior-based robotics, artificial life and evolutionary computatio ...
and Mario Tokoro in 1996.
Since 2017, he is director of Spotify's Creator Research Technology Lab in Paris, where he develops tools for assisting music creation.
Achievements
The Music team at Sony Computer Science Laboratory Paris was founded in 1997 by Pachet, where he developed the vision that metadata can greatly enhance the musical experience, from listening to performance.
The Flow Composer is his second achievement, a system to compose lead sheets in the style of arbitrary composers. It was followed by LSDB, the first collecting lead sheets in electronic format with a large-scale effort (Over 11,000 lead sheets collected); and Virtuoso, a solo jazz detector. The "Popular Music Browser" project, which started in 1998, at Sony Computer Science Laboratories This research project covers all areas of the music‐to‐listener chain, from music description, descriptor extraction from the music signal, or
data mining
Data mining is the process of extracting and finding patterns in massive data sets involving methods at the intersection of machine learning, statistics, and database systems. Data mining is an interdisciplinary subfield of computer science and ...
techniques, Similarity‐based access, and novel music retrieval methods such as automatic sequence generation, and to user interface issues.
Moreover, he has designed the Continuator, a system allowing real-time musical improvisation with an algorithm. He is now the beneficiary of the
ERC Grant Flow Machines for investigating how machines can boost
creativity
Creativity is the ability to form novel and valuable Idea, ideas or works using one's imagination. Products of creativity may be intangible (e.g. an idea, scientific theory, Literature, literary work, musical composition, or joke), or a physica ...
in humans and be able to continue a work in the same musical style. Pachet wants a future in which consumers could buy the unique style of an artist and apply it to their own material; he says, "I call it 'Stylistic Cryogenics' -- to freeze the style into an object that can be reused and made alive again".
The MusicSpace is a spatialization control system created with O. Delerue in 2000.
Another achievement is CUIDADO (Content-based Unified Interfaces and Descriptors for Audio/music Databases available Online), a two-year project ended in 2003, on developing content-based, audio modules and applications; the project includes the analysis, the navigation and creative process. This project is satisfying the needs of record labels and copyright societies for Information management methods, for marketing and for protecting their informations, using an Authoring system using content features for professional musicians and studios. Moreover, in 2014, Pachet presented two music tutorials on Brazilian guitar and
Jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its roots are in blues, ragtime, European harmony, African rhythmic rituals, spirituals, h ...
.
His most notable achievement is the Continuator, an interactive music improvisation system. Experimented with many
professional musicians, presented notably at the SIGGRAPH’03 conference and
considered a reference in the domain of music interaction, an example of a Musical Turing test with the Continuator on VPRO Channel with Jazz Pianist jazz Albert van Veenendaal (Amsterdam).
ARTE
Arte (, , ; ' ('), sometimes stylised in lowercase or uppercase in its logo) is a European Union, European public service Television channel, channel dedicated to culture. It is made up of three separate companies: the Strasbourg-based Europea ...
presents Pachet on Square Idée "Demain, devenir
Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, essayist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most o ...
ou
Daft Punk
Daft Punk were a French electronic music duo formed in 1993 in Paris by Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo. They achieved popularity in the late 1990s as part of the French house movement, combining house music, funk, disco, tech ...
?", (Tomorrow, become Wagner or Daft Punk?) October 2015. Pachet writes about using CP techniques to model style in music and text for ACP (Association for Constraints Programming), in September 2015.
In 2017 he produced and released a multi-artist album, Hello World, composed with Artificial Intelligence.
See also
*
Active listening
Active listening is the practice of preparing to listen, observing what verbal and non-verbal messages are being sent, and then providing appropriate feedback for the sake of showing attentiveness to the message being presented.
Active listeni ...
*
Machine learning
Machine learning (ML) is a field of study in artificial intelligence concerned with the development and study of Computational statistics, statistical algorithms that can learn from data and generalise to unseen data, and thus perform Task ( ...
Bibliography
* Best paper award.
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*
*
*
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*
Personal Writings
Pachet has written several non-scientific books about music:
# - Histoire d'une oreille. An augmented book about the ontogenesis of a musical ear.
# - Comment je n'ai pas rencontré Paul McCartney. A short story.
# - Max Order ou l'invention du style (a comic book realized in the context of the ERCcOMICS project).
References
External links
François Pachet (Sony CSL Paris)
François Pachet's websiteFlow Machine's websiteCan being a jazz musician make you a better decision maker?''Hot Topics 2015''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pachet, Francois
1964 births
Living people
French computer scientists
Artificial intelligence researchers
European Research Council grantees
Spotify people