4 ms·

Most of this writeup is just a reinvention of Schenkerian analysis, and suffers from the same problem, in that you exercise a lot of editorial judgement in deci

Most of this writeup is just a reinvention of Schenkerian analysis, and suffers from the same problem, in that you exercise a lot of editorial judgement in deciding which parts are the core/structural ideas and which parts are embellishment. That undermines the whole idea that this is automatic composition, because you are deciding a heck of a lot upfront. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenkerian_analysis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenkerian_analysis The worked example also doesn't follow the stylistic rules that would make it satisfyingly authentic as a variation in the style of Beethoven. To calibrate: if you were to submit it as an exercise for music A-Level in the UK (age 16 pre-university) I don't think you would get a passing mark unless your teacher was feeling particularly generous. But on the other hand, Classical style is incredibly refined and specific. They could have had much more success producing something following the example of Messiaen, who wrote a specific set of harmonic and rhythmic rules he was going to use for all his compositions which would be relatively easy to encode in a program. ("The technique of my musical language" is the 2-volume book I'm talking about and it's completely amazing btw. He really was an incredibly extraordinary person). https://www.scribd.com/document/355450046/Messiaen-Olivier-The-Technique-of-My-Musical-Language https://www.scribd.com/document/355450046/Messiaen-Olivier-T...

TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
Schenker is pretty questionable anyway. He was a mediocre composer (at best) and it's perfectly possible to create credible multiple analyses of the same piece of music. So while it's true that classical style(s) are very specific, it's also true they're all different. Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and Chopin are not speaking the same language. They don't even speak the same language across their careers. So while there are common techniques - like the idea of elaboration - they're really just the most obvious surface features, and implementing them is not nearly enough to produce decent pastiche. AI/Music research is littered with the the corpses of projects that have attempted to do this. It's an incredibly hard problem - because unlike a board game, the "rules" change all the time, and there is no clear definition of "winning." You can certainly mass-produce musical content in a fairly simple style - say minimal techno - and then cherry pick the best output. But even that turns out to be harder than it seems, and it's not real AI unless you can formally define why some output is better than other output. Beyond some fairly minimal perceptual and psychoacoustic basics, there's almost no research into that. Really, we know much less about music than we think we do. Theory, Schenker included, is a very basic introduction. The interesting bits happen elsewhere, and we really don't understand how they work.
twangist 5y ago
Thank you for the link to Messiaen's book!

TheOtherHobbes 5y ago

Schenker is pretty questionable anyway. He was a mediocre composer (at best) and it's perfectly possible to create credible multiple analyses of the same piece of music. So while it's true that classical style(s) are very specific, it's also true they're all different. Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and Chopin are not speaking the same language. They don't even speak the same language across their careers. So while there are common techniques - like the idea of elaboration - they're really just the most obvious surface features, and implementing them is not nearly enough to produce decent pastiche. AI/Music research is littered with the the corpses of projects that have attempted to do this. It's an incredibly hard problem - because unlike a board game, the "rules" change all the time, and there is no clear definition of "winning." You can certainly mass-produce musical content in a fairly simple style - say minimal techno - and then cherry pick the best output. But even that turns out to be harder than it seems, and it's not real AI unless you can formally define why some output is better than other output. Beyond some fairly minimal perceptual and psychoacoustic basics, there's almost no research into that. Really, we know much less about music than we think we do. Theory, Schenker included, is a very basic introduction. The interesting bits happen elsewhere, and we really don't understand how they work.

twangist 5y ago

Thank you for the link to Messiaen's book!