I'm interested in automatic music making. I was thinking about a program that is fed a large number of 1-bar arpeggios (= fixed length sequences of notes, for simplicity) and generates its own sequences, based on what it learnt.
To start with, I know I could use letter (digram? trigram?) frequency analysis, only applied to note pitches, and then generate my sequence based on frequency probabilities.
Are there more advanced algorithms you know of, maybe expressly taught for music sequences?
The Wikipedia article on Algorithmic Composition is an excellent primer. It describes some of the models used for algorithmic music creation, notable composers, book references, and algorithmic composition software.