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I'm fascinated by this. It's interesting that in that context the creativity/passion/humanity of somebody like David Cope doesn't count. If he's writing softwar

I'm fascinated by this. It's interesting that in that context the creativity/passion/humanity of somebody like David Cope doesn't count. If he's writing software then it's just cold, heartless automation.

aristoxenus 17y ago
This guy has certainly met a lot of resistance in his day, but I'm tempted to assume that most of it has been from the pre-Atari generation (certainly pre-Internet). The story mentions that he's contracted with a "pop group" -- if it's anyone noticeable, and if the music is at all good, I don't believe we're exactly going to have a teen revolt on our hands. (Quite the contrary -- real creativity is rare in pop, and if a computer can bring it, this could catch on just as autotune did. Maybe even bigger in the long run.)
- eru 17y ago
  Perhaps more people will take to composing. If with the help of this technique, I can turn a small idea into a mediocre piece of music without too much work, I'll definitely play around with it. (I say mediocre, because I guess you'll probably still need skill to produce good and original music with it. But I will show interest even in mediocre stuff, if it's my stuff.)
dejb 17y ago
> it's just cold, heartless automation An alternative view would be that he has captured part of the 'warm, emotional' essence of a few of the algorithms that are at work in musician's brains when they compose music is making them available to the world. Instead of just delivery a 'golden egg' he is trying to create the goose itself. To me that is a far more spectacular act of creativity/passion (no I don't see 'humanity' as being synonymous with these). It is probably worth noting the the silicon chip he runs the algorithm on probably operates at higher than the temperature of a human brain so perhaps 'warm, electronic automation' would be a better description.
- EAMiller 17y ago
  To be clear, my comment was made in surprise that that his creativity/passion goes unappreciated - I agree it's an amazing accomplishment. In general though I think the binary of warm/emotion vs. cold/heartless is kind of useless. As in his quote : "I can understand why it’s an issue if you’ve got an extremely romanticized view of what art is" Art is amazing stuff people make, be it software or music.

aristoxenus 17y ago

This guy has certainly met a lot of resistance in his day, but I'm tempted to assume that most of it has been from the pre-Atari generation (certainly pre-Internet). The story mentions that he's contracted with a "pop group" -- if it's anyone noticeable, and if the music is at all good, I don't believe we're exactly going to have a teen revolt on our hands. (Quite the contrary -- real creativity is rare in pop, and if a computer can bring it, this could catch on just as autotune did. Maybe even bigger in the long run.)

eru 17y ago
Perhaps more people will take to composing. If with the help of this technique, I can turn a small idea into a mediocre piece of music without too much work, I'll definitely play around with it. (I say mediocre, because I guess you'll probably still need skill to produce good and original music with it. But I will show interest even in mediocre stuff, if it's my stuff.)

dejb 17y ago

> it's just cold, heartless automation An alternative view would be that he has captured part of the 'warm, emotional' essence of a few of the algorithms that are at work in musician's brains when they compose music is making them available to the world. Instead of just delivery a 'golden egg' he is trying to create the goose itself. To me that is a far more spectacular act of creativity/passion (no I don't see 'humanity' as being synonymous with these). It is probably worth noting the the silicon chip he runs the algorithm on probably operates at higher than the temperature of a human brain so perhaps 'warm, electronic automation' would be a better description.

EAMiller 17y ago
To be clear, my comment was made in surprise that that his creativity/passion goes unappreciated - I agree it's an amazing accomplishment. In general though I think the binary of warm/emotion vs. cold/heartless is kind of useless. As in his quote : "I can understand why it’s an issue if you’ve got an extremely romanticized view of what art is" Art is amazing stuff people make, be it software or music.