David “Dave” Cope (born May 17, 1941) is an American author, composer, scientist, and Dickerson Emeriti Professor of Music at UC Santa Cruz.
[1] Cope is the inventor of US Patent #7696426 "Recombinant music composition algorithm and method of using the same," which he filed in 2006.
[3] His EMI (Experiments in Musical Intelligence) software has produced works in the style of various composers,[4][5] some of which have been commercially recorded[6]—ranging from short pieces to full-length operas.
[7] In 1981, he received a commission to compose an opera, but had a "composer's block", so he began writing EMI (on an Apple desktop computer) to understand and modify his own style, and 8 years after receiving the commission, managed to write the opera in 2 days with the help of EMI.
[10] As a composer, Cope's own work has encompassed a variety of styles—from the traditional to the avant-garde—and techniques, such as unconventional manners of playing, experimental musical instrument, and microtonal scales, including a 33-note system of just intonation he developed himself.