Man destroys the reason behind music

[Basic A]

If this shit operates on rules its already doomed.

I reverse notes... Kode9 dont use em, haha... Stench shatters the logic of key... one thing it cant do, hear itself, logically break the law, ect...

Oh, n it cant see audiences smile.

See the alpaca.

[boot]

Oh, n it cant see audiences smile.

If it has an optics attachment it can

[Basic A]

Oh, n it cant see audiences smile.

If it has an optics attachment it can

Oh well?

a monkey with chord helper can do the same. Better probably, it wont mind the rules as much.

This isnt like creativity though, nor is this AI... this is just ruled construction... Computers can instantly render beautiful paintings too... Still dig van gogh more, its the human impression n touch.

[kidlogic]

When this program starts spittin out unquantized Dilla-esque sample based compositions, Ill get worried. As it was said, until it can break the rules as well as follow them, its nothing more than an intricate playback machine.

Its essentially a DAW with a Orchestral VST and a drastically different GUI than we're used to. Where our "questions" are where are we going to put this midi note to make it sound "right" based on how we're feeling via a graphical interface, this program puts midi notes (or their equivilant) in their respective places to make it "right" based on questions asked of the user. I see the difference between this and say Ableton no different than between Ableton and ReNoise. Different method, similar result. No reason to worry.

Now, on the topic of emotion in music and emotion being tied to language... emotion is defined by language, but not created by it. Ask a baby why they cry when they're upset, or laugh when they're happy. They're obviously feeling some sort of emotion - desire, lonelyness, joy, wonder, love... but lacking the language needed to both understand you and relay what they're feeling. They cant tell you what they're feeling, but they still feel something to cause the action.

As for music to be made by a human for humans to feel something upon listening, I guess that quote about Emily Howell answers that. Some would say that any electronic music is lacking in soul - I know the dude who used to sell the "Drum Machines Have No Soul" bumper stickers outside of Amoeba Records in LA would - but thats a matter of personal taste.

[gravity]

thats quite interesting. the first piece is actually really good.

[continuumdnb]

If this shit operates on rules its already doomed.

until it can break the rules as well as follow them

Guys, generally it's a good idea to read an article before commenting on it. I mean, if thearticle hadn't gone into some detail about how the first program he wrote wouldn't break rules so it sounded shit, then second version analysed famous composers and how they broke rules in order to create pieces that experts couldn't tell apart from originals by breaking rules in the same way, and the third break rules in an entirely original way, then you might not have looked quite so silly...

... but the article did go into detail about those things.

[kidlogic]

If this shit operates on rules its already doomed.

until it can break the rules as well as follow them

Guys, generally it's a good idea to read an article before commenting on it. I mean, if thearticle hadn't gone into some detail about how the first program he wrote wouldn't break rules so it sounded shit, then second version analysed famous composers and how they broke rules in order to create pieces that experts couldn't tell apart from originals by breaking rules in the same way, and the third break rules in an entirely original way, then you might not have looked quite so silly...

... but the article did go into detail about those things.

I read it and stand by what I said. Its still a program, and its still operating under the rules of a system based on its very nature. Its breaking rules in a preset way, not from a spark of creativity or from figuring out that if you tweek your hardware a certain way you'll get an unexpected result, or if you reverse this and invert that, etc. Its still a machine emulating a human and to do so it needs rules. A program cant hear a mistake and say to itself "wait a minute, that sounds good so Im keeping it". It still has a person telling it what rules it can break and still sound listenable, or else it generate random chaotic noise at some point. For it to sound like a composer, any composer even just in theory or mimicry, it has to follow some rules... rules that it cannot break and still obtain its goal.

[gravity]

^^^

well in that case computers have been able to break compositional rules for ages. it just tends to sound shit or like a racket

[wirez]

Sounds like an upper-class arpeggiator lol.

Seriously though, if things such as this got big then I'd just focus more time on the skill and technique of playing a tangible instrument. Computers in factories have been making things for years but humans still favour and value things that are 'hand-made' because they appreciate the skill and dedication gone into making it...

[continuumdnb]

I read it and stand by what I said. Its still a program, and its still operating under the rules of a system based on its very nature. Its breaking rules in a preset way, not from a spark of creativity or from figuring out that if you tweek your hardware a certain way you'll get an unexpected result, or if you reverse this and invert that, etc. Its still a machine emulating a human and to do so it needs rules. A program cant hear a mistake and say to itself "wait a minute, that sounds good so Im keeping it". It still has a person telling it what rules it can break and still sound listenable, or else it generate random chaotic noise at some point. For it to sound like a composer, any composer even just in theory or mimicry, it has to follow some rules... rules that it cannot break and still obtain its goal.

Ok, i get where you're coming from with regards to the whole "the machine exists in a world built on rules, and because of that [it's compositions] will never be as strong or as fast as you can be", put what i drew from the article that i find really interesting is that every famous composer's work can be thought of as a systematic, rule based, way of working, where the deviations from the set of rules that govern tonality are themselves governed by another set of rules. For me, this realisation doesn't take away anything from the music, but rather adds another layer of interest, but i see why people might get upset.

[kidlogic]

Im not upset in the least about this, infact quite the opposite. I really dont see it as much more than a novelty. The concepts being explored will probably benifit future AI systems, but no one wants robot musicians anymore than people want robot poets or painters. There is a reason why we create music and art, and no computer program will be able to recreate that for us since its as much about the experience.

As for every composer using a systematic set of rules... I dont think that its true for all of them, and a lot of the classical composers wrote the so called rules. Are you breaking them if you are making them up as you go? And what about Free Jazz? Ornette Coleman follows no rules.

Beside the point though, cause I really cant see a computer doing some of the things Dilla did with an MPC or Grandmaster Theodore did with a turntable. Classical music is the Latin of the music world really.

[Hurtdeer]

Im not upset in the least about this, infact quite the opposite. I really dont see it as much more than a novelty. The concepts being explored will probably benifit future AI systems, but no one wants robot musicians anymore than people want robot poets or painters. There is a reason why we create music and art, and no computer program will be able to recreate that for us since its as much about the experience.

As for every composer using a systematic set of rules... I dont think that its true for all of them, and a lot of the classical composers wrote the so called rules. Are you breaking them if you are making them up as you go? And what about Free Jazz? Ornette Coleman follows no rules.

Beside the point though, cause I really cant see a computer doing some of the things Dilla did with an MPC or Grandmaster Theodore did with a turntable. Classical music is the Latin of the music world really.

why not? dilla's music, great though it is, actually generally follows a thinner set of rules than most classical in creating his style

i wouldn't mind robot composers. I'd judge it primarily on the actual end result, not who or what made it. if it's good, then's it good

[boot]

As for every composer using a systematic set of rules... I dont think that its true for all of them, and a lot of the classical composers wrote the so called rules. Are you breaking them if you are making them up as you go? And what about Free Jazz? Ornette Coleman follows no rules. .

Depends how far you break it down really. They don't have to abide by human made rules of what's acceptable for pitch/rhythm/timbre, as per Ornette Coleman, or composers such as Xenakis or Stockhausen
They will eventually have to abide by the laws of physics though.
Interesting discussion

[my_fickle_eye]

“I can understand why it’s an issue if you’ve got an extremely romanticized view of what art is,” he says. “But Bach peed, and he shat, and he had a lot of kids. We’re all just people.”

Bring on the underground music which cant be imitated by AI then once someone has programmed that. Noo one will care about my music, accept when i play live sets which is the only way i could make a living anyway.

I think it will be used for things like ads and tv music computer game music etc, but if people see someone live they will want a copy of a cd or something.

[kidlogic]

Im not upset in the least about this, infact quite the opposite. I really dont see it as much more than a novelty. The concepts being explored will probably benifit future AI systems, but no one wants robot musicians anymore than people want robot poets or painters. There is a reason why we create music and art, and no computer program will be able to recreate that for us since its as much about the experience.

As for every composer using a systematic set of rules... I dont think that its true for all of them, and a lot of the classical composers wrote the so called rules. Are you breaking them if you are making them up as you go? And what about Free Jazz? Ornette Coleman follows no rules.

Beside the point though, cause I really cant see a computer doing some of the things Dilla did with an MPC or Grandmaster Theodore did with a turntable. Classical music is the Latin of the music world really.

why not? dilla's music, great though it is, actually generally follows a thinner set of rules than most classical in creating his style

i wouldn't mind robot composers. I'd judge it primarily on the actual end result, not who or what made it. if it's good, then's it good

I agree with the if its good, its good idea. That reminds me of something I was going to say in an earlier post... the soul of the music comes as much from you relating to it as it does from the artist putting theirs into it. So it would be just as easy to "feel" music generated by this program as it would be by Cope himself. The artist quite often has a different take on the meaning of their music or the feelings it evokes than the listener, and being subjective neither is wrong. To my parents, a deep minimal techno groove would seem extremely soul-less, but I can hear the feeling in a well produced track. Likewise, a lot of the pop-country music they listen too feels too much like "product" for me to feel or relate to it.

Im not a super Dilla fanboy either, but I do credit him as an inspiration as to how he looked at music and what he could do with a sample. I dont know if you've ever done a sample source comparison between his tunes and the songs he sampled, but you're right, he really didnt do a lot when all was said and done. But what he did I have a hard time imagining a computer replicating, even with him writing the source code. Maybe because of its inherent simplicity. Maybe its because of the thinner set of rules he laid out for himself (probably without realizing it), making them hard to quantify and copy. If you write by feel, how do you create a program that knows when a song is done by how it feels, based on your personal guidelines? Hell, I dont know when a song is gonna be finished half the time, so how do I write the code for that?

The more I think about this though, and the more I go back to that article in my thoughts, the more I realize that even with that program, Cope is still doing the music. He wrote the program, which as advanced as it is, its still just another instrument. I could sit and dissect the production habits of all the big name producers in the game right now, feed that into his program and then answer questions based on how Im feeling and probably get some decent sounding deepness or some filthy wobble based on the answers, but its still coming from my code, my rules (and how they're broken) and how Im feeling, so a part of me is still in there somewhere, just as a part of Mr Cope is still inside Emily. Until its true AI with consciousness, it still comes in part from humans, and will still have part of the human who created them in it somewhere.

[my_fickle_eye]

bring on the singularity! .... OR NOT!

[Basic A]

why not? dilla's music, great though it is, actually generally follows a thinner set of rules than most classical in creating his style

Kode9 doesnt use key at all???

And I read the artile too, its like kidlogic siad, you can program it too have a rule for itself which will follow the pattern set by a composer who once BROKE the rule, but now, the machine is simply accepting it as yet another one of its laws.

Im not upset in the least about this, infact quite the opposite.

Yeah, me neither, its cool, n Im still gonna bang through keys.

computer game music etc

Yeah, that would make sense, rather then a loopable track for a level song, you could have something that constantly volves, and logically changes vibes too match what the player experiences on screen. You hit a boss battle, the FSharp minor comes in, you save the princess, its G Major all the way...

[nowaysj]

bring on the singularity! .... OR NOT!

Don't know if this will be the singularity, or something else. Just wish we could get some goddamned people on another planet soon.

[JFK]

but trying not to break these, there will be no new ideas, so basically it's repetition not invention...

Sums it up perfectly for me.....

[alphacat]

FWIW this is nothing new either. Other musical geniuses have come up with automated composition tools/devices/methods, like Bruce Haack and Raymond Scott - way back in the 1950's. In fact, Berry Gordy from Motown was considering buying one of Scott's machines in the late sixties in an effort to cut out those pesky songwriters from the whole compensation process...

And when you listen to the music these devices made, a lot of it wasn't bad either (a lot of Scott's work holds up surprisingly well considering how old it is.) But this paradigm shift never happened despite the best efforts of their creators.

Which is not to lend support to either side of this debate, just add a little context.