The computer algorithm behind the study, called DarwinTunes, maintains a population of 100 loops of music, each eight seconds long. Listeners scored loops in batches of 20 on a five-point scale from 'I can't stand it!' to 'I love it!'. DarwinTunes then 'mates' the top ten loops, pairing them up as 'parents' and mingling musical elements of each pair, to create twenty new loops. These replace the original parents and the less pleasing non-parents. This process represents one 'generation' of musical evolution. At the time of publication, DarwinTunes had evolved through 2,513 generations.

Members of the public can continue to help the music evolve, by taking part in the DarwinTunes experiment athttp://darwintunes.org. Individual loops can also be downloaded and used as ringtones or for offline music making.