Music generation tool

A system and computer-implemented method for generating digital music content which aims to facilitate creation of new music. A music notation data store 12 has a collection of notation data files and an audio data store 18 has a collection of audio data files such as instrument samples. Each data file includes associated music characteristic metadata relating to characteristics such as: genre, style, emotion, instrument type and/or frequency, pitch, duration, bit rate, sample rate or number of channels. One or more computer processors receives user music preference inputs from a user interface 26 and searches the notation and audio data stores to identify a plurality of data files corresponding to one or more user preference inputs. The processor randomly selects at least one notation file and at least one audio file from the identified notation and audio files and generates a music instance file by combining the selected notation and audio files for playback to the user.