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As a pianist I do not understand the purpose of music that is not playable by humans. In my understanding music is a communication method between human souls. A

by holri 13y ago

As a pianist I do not understand the purpose of music that is not playable by humans. In my understanding music is a communication method between human souls. A computer has no soul, likewise Black MIDI "music".

owenmarshall 13y ago
Interesting take. What's your impression of Musique concrète or - possibly the furthest out - someone like Cage?
secoif 13y ago
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/close-minded http://www.thefreedictionary.com/close-minded
bradleyland 13y ago
If music is communication that originates in your soul, then your hands are merely a tool for realizing that expression. Why can't music realized through other means have soul? Arguably, more complex tools allow for greater expressiveness.
cdcarter 13y ago
Go see a Nicolas Jaar concert, or any other incredible electronic musician, and then please tell me again that electronic music has no soul.
mrgoldenbrown 13y ago
This music is "playable by humans." Their instrument is a MIDI sequencer rather than a piano or guitar. Are you claiming that only X, Y and Z physical artifacts can make real music? Do player pianos make music? Does my MP3 player output music? Maybe I'm unsophisticated, but plenty of 'music' that comes out of my MP3 player generates the kind of emotion that I think of when you say "communication between souls".
Strilanc 13y ago
Pianos don't have souls, either. Maybe I'd understand your complaint if it was about computer composition of music, but this is just using the computer as an instrument. Would you say flute players can't play music "with soul" because they aren't directly whistling the noises? Why not? How is that qualitatively different from using a computer to play your composition?
- holri 13y ago
  Handmade Pianos have souls. The soul of the technician that built it. This is why the best Pianos like Bösendorfer and Steinways are still built manually.
  - PavlovsCat 13y ago
    That sounds kind of esoteric / superstitious to me. Has this been blind tested? Anyway... computer music has the soul of the people selecting the samples and the parameters for instrument synthesis, and choosing when and how to play them. That's why all that is done manually. Heck, on the C64 (probably not just there) it wasn't unusual for composers to write their own composing software and playback routines.
    - holri 13y ago
      In the C64 days I programmed my TI99/4A to play Bach. It sounded awful. The interpretation had no soul. Soul is not blind testable, like art, because it comes from the heart, not the brain.
      - Stwerp 13y ago
        Is soul the imprecision of notes not being perfectly uniform in duration and velocity? That's what your above comment seems to imply. For instance: Consider a recording from a piano played by a human and a computer-generated MIDI file of the same musical piece with included variation/noise in BPM, note duration, velocity, timing etc. This would result in at least single-blind test for `soul' if you were to listen to it. You could tell us which piece you think has more, or any (I'm not sure if soul is quantifiable or just a binary existence) soul.
vidarh 13y ago
I don't get that mindset at all. A lot of the music I listen to is music that is not playable on an analogue instruments without severely butchering it. Ranging from 8-bit chip tunes to much more complex electronic music. Why does that affect the level of communication? To me, the only thing that is different vs a song is that for electronic music the communication is mostly from the composer. But I find that to be the case for most instrumental music, including classical music - a performer that adds so much "personality" to the piece that I notice will generally annoy me.
- holri 13y ago
  A human interpretation of sheet music is a 3 tier soul transformation. Composer - Interpret - Listener. Computer played music has an digital filter that eliminates a lot of soul in between. Music notation is only a recipe for making music. Playing the recipe is not making music.
  - wonderyak 13y ago
    Zappa referred to electronic music (of the day) as 'missing the eyebrows'. Its sort of the uncanny valley of electronic music.
  - MoosePlissken 13y ago
    There are plenty of other artistic mediums that lack a performance aspect. Painting, drawing, literature, photography. Do these mediums also lack soul because they directly connect the composer to the audience, without a third party to interpret? Sure, if a piece of music was written with the intent that it be played by human hands, then it probably won't sound great when played by a computer. But if an artist creates an original piece of music using electronic tools, how is listening to that piece any different than viewing a photograph, a painting, or reading a book? Many people dislike audio books specifically BECAUSE the filter of the narrator colors their interpretation of the author's words. As with reading, one might argue that electronic music better communicates the author's soul to the audience.
    - 13y ago
derleth 13y ago
I'm pretty certain I don't have a soul, either.
neuralk 13y ago
When you say "playable by humans," what do you mean? If you mean "physically capable of being played by a human" then I'd say that a large majority of popular music right now is unplayable by humans, simply due to the sheer amount of digital production that goes into them. Many genres of electronic music fit in this category, but while being "unplayable," all clearly have an author (the composer/producer) and an intent (no matter how shallow or profound). But if you meant "playable by humans" on a subtler level, I then ask: Is music coming from a radio playable by humans? Is music written on a sheet playable by humans? Both lack an immediate human operator that is "playing" them, yet despite this difference of media, both are valid forms of music that clearly communicate the intent of a human soul (the former through the radio device, the latter through symbols). I'd argue that using the computer/algorithm used to generate the black MIDI is an instrument like any other. Maybe you were asking something more along the lines of: how valuable is music that is generated arbitrarily or randomly by a computer algorithm, and does it contain "soul" like music produced explicitly by humans? That is a philosophical question about the nature of art and computational creativity, perhaps without an answer.
- holri 13y ago
  As Frank Zappa said music notation is like a recipe. He also said eating the recipe is crazy. Hearing computer played notes is like eating the recipe.
aegiso 13y ago
As an internet commenter I do not understand the purpose of Wifi signals that are not visible to humans. In my understanding discussion is a communication method between human souls. A computer has no soul, likewise Internet "comments".
21echoes 13y ago
this is like saying books must be spoken aloud, never written down.
normloman 13y ago
Ordinary people like music that sounds good. They don't care how it was made. Only musicians care about that. So whether it was made by human hands or a computer algorithm, if it sounds good, people will listen.
PavlovsCat 13y ago
Obligatory quote: "If I hear one more person who comes up to me and complains about "computer music has no soul" then I will go furious, you know. 'Cause of course the computer is just a tool. And if there is no soul in computer music then it's because nobody put it there and that's not the computer's role. It's the role of the songwriter. He puts down his soul in the song if he wants to. A guitar will never write a song and a computer will never write a song. These are just tools." -- Björk That said, I'm not a fan of those particular songs either; less would be more IMHO. But many of my all time favourite songs are chip tunes... some compositions (!) simply don't need additional "soul" added to them, they work just fine played by a robot.
kalleboo 13y ago
Some of my favorite music is VOCALOID-based (musical speech synthesis), so it doesn't even have a real person singing. And it sure as hell has a lot more "soul" that a lot of the music that's been played by "real instruments" (especially your extremely slim definition).
- peterpathname 13y ago
  recommendations?
owenmarshall 13y ago
I just want to point out how depressing it is that a comment that has spawned quite a bit of interesting discussion has been downvoted so heavily. C'mon HN, be better than that!

by holri 13y ago

owenmarshall 13y ago

Interesting take. What's your impression of Musique concrète or - possibly the furthest out - someone like Cage?

secoif 13y ago

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/close-minded http://www.thefreedictionary.com/close-minded

bradleyland 13y ago

If music is communication that originates in your soul, then your hands are merely a tool for realizing that expression. Why can't music realized through other means have soul? Arguably, more complex tools allow for greater expressiveness.

cdcarter 13y ago

Go see a Nicolas Jaar concert, or any other incredible electronic musician, and then please tell me again that electronic music has no soul.

mrgoldenbrown 13y ago

This music is "playable by humans." Their instrument is a MIDI sequencer rather than a piano or guitar. Are you claiming that only X, Y and Z physical artifacts can make real music? Do player pianos make music? Does my MP3 player output music? Maybe I'm unsophisticated, but plenty of 'music' that comes out of my MP3 player generates the kind of emotion that I think of when you say "communication between souls".

Strilanc 13y ago

Pianos don't have souls, either. Maybe I'd understand your complaint if it was about computer composition of music, but this is just using the computer as an instrument. Would you say flute players can't play music "with soul" because they aren't directly whistling the noises? Why not? How is that qualitatively different from using a computer to play your composition?

holri 13y ago
Handmade Pianos have souls. The soul of the technician that built it. This is why the best Pianos like Bösendorfer and Steinways are still built manually.
- PavlovsCat 13y ago
  That sounds kind of esoteric / superstitious to me. Has this been blind tested? Anyway... computer music has the soul of the people selecting the samples and the parameters for instrument synthesis, and choosing when and how to play them. That's why all that is done manually. Heck, on the C64 (probably not just there) it wasn't unusual for composers to write their own composing software and playback routines.
  - holri 13y ago
    In the C64 days I programmed my TI99/4A to play Bach. It sounded awful. The interpretation had no soul. Soul is not blind testable, like art, because it comes from the heart, not the brain.
    - Stwerp 13y ago
      Is soul the imprecision of notes not being perfectly uniform in duration and velocity? That's what your above comment seems to imply. For instance: Consider a recording from a piano played by a human and a computer-generated MIDI file of the same musical piece with included variation/noise in BPM, note duration, velocity, timing etc. This would result in at least single-blind test for `soul' if you were to listen to it. You could tell us which piece you think has more, or any (I'm not sure if soul is quantifiable or just a binary existence) soul.

vidarh 13y ago

I don't get that mindset at all. A lot of the music I listen to is music that is not playable on an analogue instruments without severely butchering it. Ranging from 8-bit chip tunes to much more complex electronic music. Why does that affect the level of communication? To me, the only thing that is different vs a song is that for electronic music the communication is mostly from the composer. But I find that to be the case for most instrumental music, including classical music - a performer that adds so much "personality" to the piece that I notice will generally annoy me.

holri 13y ago
A human interpretation of sheet music is a 3 tier soul transformation. Composer - Interpret - Listener. Computer played music has an digital filter that eliminates a lot of soul in between. Music notation is only a recipe for making music. Playing the recipe is not making music.
- wonderyak 13y ago
  Zappa referred to electronic music (of the day) as 'missing the eyebrows'. Its sort of the uncanny valley of electronic music.
- MoosePlissken 13y ago
  There are plenty of other artistic mediums that lack a performance aspect. Painting, drawing, literature, photography. Do these mediums also lack soul because they directly connect the composer to the audience, without a third party to interpret? Sure, if a piece of music was written with the intent that it be played by human hands, then it probably won't sound great when played by a computer. But if an artist creates an original piece of music using electronic tools, how is listening to that piece any different than viewing a photograph, a painting, or reading a book? Many people dislike audio books specifically BECAUSE the filter of the narrator colors their interpretation of the author's words. As with reading, one might argue that electronic music better communicates the author's soul to the audience.
  - 13y ago

derleth 13y ago

I'm pretty certain I don't have a soul, either.

neuralk 13y ago

When you say "playable by humans," what do you mean? If you mean "physically capable of being played by a human" then I'd say that a large majority of popular music right now is unplayable by humans, simply due to the sheer amount of digital production that goes into them. Many genres of electronic music fit in this category, but while being "unplayable," all clearly have an author (the composer/producer) and an intent (no matter how shallow or profound). But if you meant "playable by humans" on a subtler level, I then ask: Is music coming from a radio playable by humans? Is music written on a sheet playable by humans? Both lack an immediate human operator that is "playing" them, yet despite this difference of media, both are valid forms of music that clearly communicate the intent of a human soul (the former through the radio device, the latter through symbols). I'd argue that using the computer/algorithm used to generate the black MIDI is an instrument like any other. Maybe you were asking something more along the lines of: how valuable is music that is generated arbitrarily or randomly by a computer algorithm, and does it contain "soul" like music produced explicitly by humans? That is a philosophical question about the nature of art and computational creativity, perhaps without an answer.

holri 13y ago
As Frank Zappa said music notation is like a recipe. He also said eating the recipe is crazy. Hearing computer played notes is like eating the recipe.

aegiso 13y ago

As an internet commenter I do not understand the purpose of Wifi signals that are not visible to humans. In my understanding discussion is a communication method between human souls. A computer has no soul, likewise Internet "comments".

21echoes 13y ago

this is like saying books must be spoken aloud, never written down.

normloman 13y ago

Ordinary people like music that sounds good. They don't care how it was made. Only musicians care about that. So whether it was made by human hands or a computer algorithm, if it sounds good, people will listen.

PavlovsCat 13y ago

Obligatory quote: "If I hear one more person who comes up to me and complains about "computer music has no soul" then I will go furious, you know. 'Cause of course the computer is just a tool. And if there is no soul in computer music then it's because nobody put it there and that's not the computer's role. It's the role of the songwriter. He puts down his soul in the song if he wants to. A guitar will never write a song and a computer will never write a song. These are just tools." -- Björk That said, I'm not a fan of those particular songs either; less would be more IMHO. But many of my all time favourite songs are chip tunes... some compositions (!) simply don't need additional "soul" added to them, they work just fine played by a robot.

kalleboo 13y ago

Some of my favorite music is VOCALOID-based (musical speech synthesis), so it doesn't even have a real person singing. And it sure as hell has a lot more "soul" that a lot of the music that's been played by "real instruments" (especially your extremely slim definition).

peterpathname 13y ago
recommendations?

owenmarshall 13y ago

I just want to point out how depressing it is that a comment that has spawned quite a bit of interesting discussion has been downvoted so heavily. C'mon HN, be better than that!