Computer Generated Music & Albums - Music - Forums : Best Ever Albums

Kiki

My initial post is not going to be long as it has only just crossed my mind. The title of the thread does say quite a lot though and make of it what you will.

We're talking music a computer program created. Not a big clunky robot who has traded in its laser gun for a guitar. I'm talking about software. A computer program. There are programs out there already which can create conventional classical pieces following patterns and the like. Before 2100 there is a huge chance a computer program will create a whole album of music which will be given, by some trickster, an incredible, heartrending story about unrequited love and loss. Perhaps they will say the artist disappeared after handing in the album to record company to live the life of a hermit. People will rave over it and they will talk about the emotions inside it. One day (or maybe never at all Shocked

) it will come out the whole thing was produced by a computer program. No human hands, the computer composed the whole thing using patterns and doing what it was programmed to do.

Will you fall for it? Do you believe if you heard anything of such you would see through it even if you had the troubled story of some tortured soul to go with it? You very likely would and I don't think there is any shame in it. Perhaps you believe there is something unique inside a human though. There will always be something uniquely human within music which no machine can replicate. Maybe.

Back to the being duped part, would the music be necessarily bad once you found out you have been had? You've listened to Johnny Bleedingheart and boy has he helped you through a tough time. He's put out what you consider one of the best albums of all time, has that one special song which almost brings a tear to your eye and you can relate and... oh. Some charlatan on the TV has announced there was no Johnny Bleedingheart. All the notes were computer generated. All the lyrics and the vocals too. Their story was even tailored to appeal to your demographic. OUCH indeed!

One question here: can the music still be considered good?

After all it was you who created the emotion, not the computer. You brought your hopes, dreams and aspirations to the music and threw them on as though it were a new canvas. It was you who created the love of the music. Mozart, Bach, Shostakovich, you have no idea how they wanted you to enjoy their pieces yet you still get enjoyment from them. As long as you're feelin it's alright.

How would musicians react in such a world? Would a "punk" like movement form around the art of creating mistakes? Could a computer program with the right software create mistakes for it's pieces? Perhaps musicians will show themselves creating music in the studio? An emphasis on playing live and releasing albums of improv songwriting? Or will others simply embrace the computer programs and be happy who they. Play their shows and release their albums even if computer generated music is dominating the charts above them?

Wow, I've gone on long than I thought here. Mr. Green

In short: issues rising from computer programs creating music indistinguishable from whatever a human could produce right down to the soul.

benpaco

Who's gonna watch you die?

Age: 27

Location: California

Laurie Anderson's talking stick did just fine already. Wouldn't be shocked if this exists and is good. Might not be as emotional, but a computer could make a pop or EDM song alright, I think.
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Kiki

benpaco wrote:

Laurie Anderson's talking stick did just fine already. Wouldn't be shocked if this exists and is good. Might not be as emotional, but a computer could make a pop or EDM song alright, I think.

Oh it does exist in simple forms right now. Just a few decades more you will have far more than pop and EDM (why those two?) being made. If you create the surficent software you could get down anything from hard rock, jazz, reggae, Hip-Hop including the vocals for any of them.

Might not be as emotional? What if it could fool you into believing it was very emotional? Razz

benpaco

Who's gonna watch you die?

Age: 27

Location: California

an_outlaw wrote:

Oh it does exist in simple forms right now. Just a few decades more you will have far more than pop and EDM (why those two?) being made. If you create the surficent software you could get down anything from hard rock, jazz, reggae, Hip-Hop including the vocals for any of them.

Might not be as emotional? What if it could fool you into believing it was very emotional? Razz

Frankly, there's just a human touch to those I'd miss. Pop is already becoming much more computer-relient (not as a whole, I did over specify), and EDM is half computer as is. MAYBE hip hop instrumentals but I'd want human lyrics. Jazz is made incredible by the player, I think, not the song. Reggae and ska both rely so much on humans it just ... I don't like that it could spill over.

If it tried to fool me into believing it was emotional, I think it would either achieve angst well or be able MAYBE to do something like The Antler's Hospice if one doesn't know the lyrics. If that makes sense.
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creator

Age: 37

Location: chicago

Although it's nowhere near the automation you're referencing, Vocaloid takes lyrics and a melody and outputs computer-generated vocals.

Kiki

benpaco wrote:

Frankly, there's just a human touch to those I'd miss. Pop is already becoming much more computer-relient (not as a whole, I did over specify), and EDM is half computer as is. MAYBE hip hop instrumentals but I'd want human lyrics. Jazz is made incredible by the player, I think, not the song. Reggae and ska both rely so much on humans it just ... I don't like that it could spill over.

If it tried to fool me into believing it was emotional, I think it would either achieve angst well or be able MAYBE to do something like The Antler's Hospice if one doesn't know the lyrics. If that makes sense.

I'm sorry if this sounds a bit rude. You're don't quite have in mind what I described. It may be a miscommunication on my part. I have a hard time putting thoughts into written words.

It's not about "hahaha this genre will be made by robots in the future" and I don't feel there is harm in being... "fooled".

For example, you've living in some year in the next half of the century. Let's say their is an artist called 'The Airborne Toxic Event' who have just released their album. You hear them and you love it. Means a lot to you.
It's better than all the computer generated music which is dominating the charts lately. This is real people playing real music. A computer couldn't create something this emotional. A few years later you find out a computer did. You and a great load of others had been duped. Yes, a computer program made this. It created the music without emotion and you saw (well heard) what you wanted to see like Narcissus.

Is it really a bad thing? I don't think so. You don't have to delete all the music and pretend to everyone it never happened.

It's not about what will be made by computer programs, it's how you deal with it.

Do you believe there is something "human" a computer program can't emulate? I believe with the right software the line can be blurred until you couldn't tell one from another.

Kiki

creator wrote:

Although it's nowhere near the automation you're referencing, Vocaloid takes lyrics and a melody and outputs computer-generated vocals.

See, we have that already. Smile

Now imagine something like this using a tone, pitch, rhythm, harmony, tempo etc to sound like a completely human singer. The computer program creates it all with no input along with it's very own lyrics. Perhaps it is done by using patterns in... well pretty much all the music we have already.

The possibilities are endless. Smile

benpaco

Who's gonna watch you die?

Age: 27

Location: California

an_outlaw wrote:

Do you believe there is something "human" a computer program can't emulate? I believe with the right software the line can be blurred until you couldn't tell one from another.

Yeah it's more this. It's not that I wouldn't accept it - if it turned out that Unknown Pleasures was really just a robot, I'd still love it. I just don't think it's possible.

There's an intensity, a rawness, a pain that is individual. I don't think a computer could dupe me by making it's voice sound as pained as Elliott Smith's for example. I mean, if it can, I still don't know if I'm in favor of it, but if it can, I'd listen to it. It takes away a specialness to it, the story behind it - really, what's an album like Closer without Ian's personal life, or Electro-Shock Blues without the loss of E's sister? There's the stories ... no computer can have those stories. Again, maybe I'm wrong. We'll see.
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Goodsir

I like this thread a lot. That's a really interesting question to bring up, outlaw. I agree with benpaco. If Unknown Pleasures was made by a robot, I'd still love it. I just really don't think a computer could ever conceive something like that. Just seems unlikely.

Hammy

So basically a musical singularity, you may be on to something here. To answer your question a program could create music filled with emotion quite easily... and would I feel duped? probably not. The technology was created by a human after all , if someone creates a program that spawns several masterpieces then why not consider that person a great musician. The program being his instrument.

Would it hold the same level of emotion?.. probably not due to that human element in music, but as technology advances as you put it "the line can be blurred until you couldn't tell one from another".