3 ms·

I play the piano in general, and have played some Bach in particular, and I'm a bit confused by your reaction. Are you referring to the two tracks on the botto

by pohl 16y ago

I play the piano in general, and have played some Bach in particular, and I'm a bit confused by your reaction. Are you referring to the two tracks on the bottom of the first page? If so, I don't see text that claims that they are Bach-like. The paragraph that follows those two tracks mentions Bach-like compositions, but the click-to-play boxes corresponding to that text are on the second page. In particular, the two click-to-play tracks on the second page called "Fugue" are the two supposedly Bach-like tracks. If, instead, you were referring to those two tracks, I'm wondering: do you have much experience with Bach's fugues in particular? When you strip away the interpretation that a live performer brings to Bach fugues, what is left is indeed very mechanistic, because the construction of the composition is largely based on starting with a theme, transforming it under various rules, and playing those transformations against each other. With interpretation they can be sublime. Rendering a satisfying interpretation of Contrapunctus I is among the most joyful experiences I've ever had at the keyboard. But not all of Bach's fugues reach such great heights. There are 24 of them in each of Well-Tempered Clavier Books I & II — and there are some more mundane fugues within that are closer to the two fugues on page 2 in terms of compositional brilliance.

jacquesm 16y ago
> I play the piano in general, and have played some Bach in particular, Neat, colour me positively jealous, the only piece I can play (by Bach) is the first of the WTK and the opening bars of partita I (which I'm insanely proud of, it took me a very long time to get that right, but as soon as the left hand starts to carry the melody I'm totally lost). So, I'm not a pianist by any definition, just to get that cleared up :) > Are you referring to the two tracks on the bottom of the first page? On that page it says: "Cope has been writing software to help him compose music for 30 years, and he long ago reached the point where most people can't tell the difference between real Bach and the Bach-like compositions his computer can produce." So I took those two - and the rest - to be samples of what it is to be 'Bach like', and while I can see some similarities (at least, more than with other composers, for those first two and the fugues) the pieces are terribly simple. I know about the fugue rules, for instance, one way to condense the score was to give just one or two voices and let the player figure out what the other ones should be since the transformation is an entirely logical one (I hope I understood that correct), not that I could do it, but I think I get the principle, it is somewhat analogous to the development of a mathematical series. The more mundane of the fugues, while not on par with some of the more spirited ones, in my opinion can compete easily with the samples of the two fugues on the second page, they are as I tried to put down elsewhere (but probably failed) to me like thin variations, and then poorly executed. I'm a bad judge of 'compositional brilliance', but I think that when Bach wrote his fugues he tried to express some idea, it has a feeling of 'going somewhere' and this stuff could probably be stretched endlessly without going anywhere, it sounds like phrases ripped from a book at random strung together. Does that make any sense to you? That doesn't mean that it isn't an impressive feat of programming though, and if he keeps at it there is a good chance that within a few years it will be at a level where it can truly compete. But it does not give me that feeling just yet. I can't play worth shit, but I've listened to music since before I could talk, my dad was totally fanatical about classical music, it took me until I was 13 or so before I heard my first popular music (and I never stopped listening to that either), there is something very impressive about this music in sense that it just 'could be' composed by a person, but that - at least, we have the say-so of the artist - it was composed entirely by machine and that it becomes hard to tell the difference. But just like a chess computer, it looks like intelligence is behind it and is making the decisions, but in the end it was just 'brute force', so I would not expect this software to suddenly come up with a new style or an undiscovered branch of music. And that's where the real genius in composition lies. Again, I'm totally jealous of your skills, not because I don't realize that you must have pumped thousands of hours in to learning to play like that, but simply because if I had not fallen in love with programming I would have stuck to music.
- pohl 16y ago
  On that page it says:... That makes sense now. I saw that text, but thought it was too far from those two files to indicate any connection. if I had not fallen in love with programming I would have stuck to music. I hear ya. There's a definite connection between programming & music (and/or mathematics and music) isn't there? I wish I had more time for music. I haven't touched it for half a decade now, and I'd really have to work to get even some of it back. I haven't yet decided what I think of this Emily Howell thing. I think I'd like to hear an entire composition interpreted by a real player. These snippets don't really give enough of a dramatic arc so it doesn't seem like a fair way to compare them. To me a lot of the real Bach fugues don't really come together until the last few bars, and I wonder if any of these real pieces would be the same way.
- gjm11 16y ago
  > one way to condense the score was to give just one or two voices and let the player figure out what the other ones should be since the transformation is an entirely logical one Fugue construction isn't mechanical; if you had only one or two voices you couldn't reliably work out all the others. (You might be able to make a plausible guess.)

by pohl 16y ago

jacquesm 16y ago

> I play the piano in general, and have played some Bach in particular, Neat, colour me positively jealous, the only piece I can play (by Bach) is the first of the WTK and the opening bars of partita I (which I'm insanely proud of, it took me a very long time to get that right, but as soon as the left hand starts to carry the melody I'm totally lost). So, I'm not a pianist by any definition, just to get that cleared up :) > Are you referring to the two tracks on the bottom of the first page? On that page it says: "Cope has been writing software to help him compose music for 30 years, and he long ago reached the point where most people can't tell the difference between real Bach and the Bach-like compositions his computer can produce." So I took those two - and the rest - to be samples of what it is to be 'Bach like', and while I can see some similarities (at least, more than with other composers, for those first two and the fugues) the pieces are terribly simple. I know about the fugue rules, for instance, one way to condense the score was to give just one or two voices and let the player figure out what the other ones should be since the transformation is an entirely logical one (I hope I understood that correct), not that I could do it, but I think I get the principle, it is somewhat analogous to the development of a mathematical series. The more mundane of the fugues, while not on par with some of the more spirited ones, in my opinion can compete easily with the samples of the two fugues on the second page, they are as I tried to put down elsewhere (but probably failed) to me like thin variations, and then poorly executed. I'm a bad judge of 'compositional brilliance', but I think that when Bach wrote his fugues he tried to express some idea, it has a feeling of 'going somewhere' and this stuff could probably be stretched endlessly without going anywhere, it sounds like phrases ripped from a book at random strung together. Does that make any sense to you? That doesn't mean that it isn't an impressive feat of programming though, and if he keeps at it there is a good chance that within a few years it will be at a level where it can truly compete. But it does not give me that feeling just yet. I can't play worth shit, but I've listened to music since before I could talk, my dad was totally fanatical about classical music, it took me until I was 13 or so before I heard my first popular music (and I never stopped listening to that either), there is something very impressive about this music in sense that it just 'could be' composed by a person, but that - at least, we have the say-so of the artist - it was composed entirely by machine and that it becomes hard to tell the difference. But just like a chess computer, it looks like intelligence is behind it and is making the decisions, but in the end it was just 'brute force', so I would not expect this software to suddenly come up with a new style or an undiscovered branch of music. And that's where the real genius in composition lies. Again, I'm totally jealous of your skills, not because I don't realize that you must have pumped thousands of hours in to learning to play like that, but simply because if I had not fallen in love with programming I would have stuck to music.

pohl 16y ago
On that page it says:... That makes sense now. I saw that text, but thought it was too far from those two files to indicate any connection. if I had not fallen in love with programming I would have stuck to music. I hear ya. There's a definite connection between programming & music (and/or mathematics and music) isn't there? I wish I had more time for music. I haven't touched it for half a decade now, and I'd really have to work to get even some of it back. I haven't yet decided what I think of this Emily Howell thing. I think I'd like to hear an entire composition interpreted by a real player. These snippets don't really give enough of a dramatic arc so it doesn't seem like a fair way to compare them. To me a lot of the real Bach fugues don't really come together until the last few bars, and I wonder if any of these real pieces would be the same way.
gjm11 16y ago
> one way to condense the score was to give just one or two voices and let the player figure out what the other ones should be since the transformation is an entirely logical one Fugue construction isn't mechanical; if you had only one or two voices you couldn't reliably work out all the others. (You might be able to make a plausible guess.)