Horrible Piano Writing

you're not getting my point. the point is. the computer is you. [/b]

Fallacy number one. A human is not a machine, and vice versa. Now, listen to what I mean. A machine cannot interpret what I put into it. I cannot possibly place every single expression I want into the music. Even if I could, the human performer often has their own unique expressions in the piece. I like what professional piano players do better than I. I'm not going to pay one to add the expressions into my electronic music.

whatever comes out of those speakers, isn't because of the computer. it's you. you're the one who wrote the music. you're the one who processed it. you're right. computers can't tell if the part is too hard physically. but you, as a person, would know that. you're the one putting the music on the computer. if it's too hard for the a real live player. then it's you who's at fault. not the computer. you're the one who's supposed to make that change.

Fallacy number two. It is impossible for me, who doesn't yet play every instrument I write for to its fullest potential, to know what is too hard. Things that even may seem correct on a computer could be impossible to finger in real life. I'm not an expert pianist, and my computer is even worse at piano than me. If I were to follow your logic, I couldn't hard music for any instrument right now, because I cannot play them to their best potential and therefor know what they can and cannot do. I'd much rather just ask an expert's opinion.

you don't want your piece sounding the same. so you get a live player to do it. no. it's more like. a real live player can never play the same piece exactly the same way twice. a player can play it good one time but not so good another time. if you process your music right on the computer, it will always sound nice. if you want it to sound different, then you can go through and do some extra work to make it sound different.

I don't want it to sound the same every time. Part of what makes music so beautiful is the sheer amount of ways you can interpret it. Why do I own 4 copies of Prokofiev's First Symphony, 3 of Overture on Hebrew Themes, 2 March in Bb's, 3 recordings of each Violin concerto, and several recordings of each piano concerto? Each is different, and each is wonderful. I could never pick one to be better than the others. I could never put it into a computer and get a satisfactory result. I love the variation. I'm not going through and changing tempos, dynamics, accents, flourishes, etc just to get a different sound. I'll just let someone else play it for me.

I totally agree with JohnGalt. A Computer can NEVER be a substitute for a human performer. It just cannot be the same.

And this is a FACT.

I totally agree with JohnGalt. A Computer can NEVER be a substitute for a human performer. It just cannot be the same.

And this is a FACT.

Nightfly had a great recording of, I believe, a piano and strings concerto that couldn't hope to be duplicated by a computer.

Chopin posted a nocturne that no computer could compete with.

Real humans > computers any day of the week. Go ask a professional musician, music professor, teacher, conductor, or anyone who has the ability to practice with humans.

Fallacy number one. A human is not a machine, and vice versa. Now, listen to what I mean. A machine cannot interpret what I put into it.

i didn't say the human is a machine. i said the machine is the human. by that i don't literally mean the machine is a human. i mean you're controlling the machine.

I cannot possibly place every single expression I want into the music. Even if I could, the human performer often has their own unique expressions in the piece.

then you haven't seen the best of computers. if a human has their own unique expression, it can be inputted into the computer too. all i'm saying is that a computer playing back a piano piece is no different than you playing the same piano piece on a midi keyboard. you have your style, the computer plays it back the way you want it to be. the computer playback is simply a snapshot of what it sounds like ideally. assuming someone is sick for the orchestra, or someone's muscle twitched during a recital. but it doesn't take that much work to recreate something along that line.

Fallacy number two. It is impossible for me, who doesn't yet play every instrument I write for to its fullest potential, to know what is too hard. Things that even may seem correct on a computer could be impossible to finger in real life. I'm not an expert pianist, and my computer is even worse at piano than me. If I were to follow your logic, I couldn't hard music for any instrument right now, because I cannot play them to their best potential and therefor know what they can and cannot do. I'd much rather just ask an expert's opinion.

alright. fine. i'll agree some of us aren't fortunate enough to have that kind of experience with instrumentation. being a close relative of an instrument shop owner/music teacher, i guess i do have that kind of luxury and don't find this being a problem for me. this i can't argue. people are different in background.

I don't want it to sound the same every time. Part of what makes music so beautiful is the sheer amount of ways you can interpret it. Why do I own 4 copies of Prokofiev's First Symphony, 3 of Overture on Hebrew Themes, 2 March in Bb's, 3 recordings of each Violin concerto, and several recordings of each piano concerto? Each is different, and each is wonderful. I could never pick one to be better than the others. I could never put it into a computer and get a satisfactory result. I love the variation. I'm not going through and changing tempos, dynamics, accents, flourishes, etc just to get a different sound. I'll just let someone else play it for me.

again. i guess this would come under the category of personal preference. i'm quite picky with the way some music sounds. i can get annoyed with a slightly off velocity of 1~5 units out of 128. i spend 80% of the time working on a music trying to create those expressions. i don't like it when it sounds different than the way i want it to be. i definitely don't mind that extra bit of work.

i'm in no way saying that i wouldn't want real live players to perform my work. i'm just saying that i believe computers are up to the level humans are.

I think you guys really need to take this conversation to another thred. This one was supposed to be about piano writing.

Please

Youze guyz both have some good points but it seems like Galt is saying a machine cannot interpret a piece of music and Beefy is saying a machine can sound as good as you want to make it(Provided you have the dollars to buy the Vienna Symphonic Library of course).

I think you're both right. I've done some pretty snazzy interpretations of my music with sampling but also, I LOVE human players. I wrote a few pieces for piano and soprano and there is no way I would be able to put the amount of effort needed to get them to sound perfect if they were done strictly with a computer. It would be futile.

Orchestras though, CAN be imitated to a degree. It depends how dense your orchestration is and how much processor power you have. A solitary line done by a sampling library sounds pretty fake to my ears(Although I'm coming around) whereas a dense texture will sound more realistic.