Robot Composer......

No. Bach was German, not human.

Ahahaha...:P

/:p - What's next? Robots painting beautiful art? Robots writing poetry and novels? This is taking away what makes us human- art. Art is ESSENTIAL to human existence!!! I cannot believe that this is happening! Especially music- Music is love, anger, passion, melancholy, beautiful. I can't even find the words to describe how angry I am!!!!!

This is an insult to all of us!!!

We are the people who save humanity from destroying itself! We give them the greatest thing a human can donate to our Earth- Art!

And what do we get!?

Stupid robots replacing us!

Thanks for reading :D

I disagree. What's to say something is worse because a robot created it? What's to say humans should give something up because robots can do it? Isn't music (or at least most music) supposed to be about expression? The fact a robot can do it is irrelevant. (Plus, the Bach was way better.)

Incompleteness theorem implies we'll never be able to produce a computer that would be able to handle everything our mind can handle.

Not really true. Read Godel, Escher, Bach. Not a very technical book, but Hofstadter knows what he's talking about. Our minds can't "Godelize" infinitely either. We're basically sophisticated machines that may or may not have free will, but are capable of self-reference.

Composer283: "Robot music" sounds much too dramatic for this. After all it's simply the use of algorithms to write music, a tool designed and used by a human composer. It's not much different than what Palestrina and many more did hundreds of years ago.

Also: If art is what makes us human, how can you fear robots can take it away? If it is an inherently human thing we surely have nothing to fear.

i'm very inclined to think we''ll create intelligent non-human machines. and i have a huge hope they will be much better than us. both - intelectually and morally. i'm just sad that most probably that won't happen while i'm still alive. oh, man, having conversation with robot, with something that transcends human thinking, it's unbelievably amazing.

GO AI!!

I speak with people who transcend my thinking almost daily.

well, you missed the point. it's not about transcending your fellow thinking, which is human all too human, but transcending human thinking, which is another beast.

but, well, you are at least lucky with that.

Yeah, I knew what you meant, I was just joking.

Yeah, I knew what you meant, I was just joking.

cheers!

Composer283: "Robot music" sounds much too dramatic for this. After all it's simply the use of algorithms to write music, a tool designed and used by a human composer. It's not much different than what Palestrina and many more did hundreds of years ago.

Also: If art is what makes us human, how can you fear robots can take it away? If it is an inherently human thing we surely have nothing to fear.

I AM quite dramatic! :shifty:

Right now, I am listening to a symphony in the style of Mozart made by this program. The recording is on the Naxos music database - I am actually enjoying it very much and if you told me it was a Mozart symphony I would believe you (since I am not familiar with all of them).

The theme from the 2nd movement is actually quite distinctive and memorable - although it is very similar to another famous Mozart theme I think.

Right now, I am listening to a symphony in the style of Mozart made by this program. The recording is on the Naxos music database - I am actually enjoying it very much and if you told me it was a Mozart symphony I would believe you (since I am not familiar with all of them).

The theme from the 2nd movement is actually quite distinctive and memorable - although it is very similar to another famous Mozart theme I think.

Hmm, was it

COPE, D.: Virtual Mozart - Experiments in Musical Intelligence

by any chance?

I happened across that a couple of days ago, on Naxos, and listened to a bit of the piano concerto. If you know Mozart's piano concertos really well, you'll notice that EVERY phrase is lifted verbatim from Mozart. Basically you'll get 8 bars from Piano concerto x, then 12 bars from piano concert y, etc. etc. ad nauseam, maybe with one bit changed to a different scale degreee.

It was not convincing musically, especially since the form was taken from a textbook, and thus very clunky and nonsensical.

Still, it sounds like Mozart on a short-term basis . . . because it is Mozart.

Anybody heard the Illiac Suite? That was composed by a computer back in the mid 50s. Though it's nowhere near as complex as what Cope's program can do...

I think you're just defending Mozart... I've heard some pretty good "robot" stuff.

There's more to it than 'lifting."

Sure, I'm more likely than most to take a contra stance when people try to imitate Mozart, but have you actually heard the exact piece I'm discussing?

Anyway, I'm not over-reacting if you've: 1) heard it, and 2) know all the Mozart piano concertos quite well.

Sure, maybe the fancy technology was so the robot pieces the snippets of Mozart together in a logical way, but the result was bad music. (Bad, but basically competent.)

So, I suggest you listen to this piece before saying I'm just being a Mozart fanboy (which we all know I am ;) ).

Of course, I am not as familiar with Mozart's music as you are. Debussy is more to my taste....

But still, this seems like it would be the first step in creating a program that could write this kind of music. It's only a matter of time before computers can compose better than we can. That sounds blasphemous, but computers are becoming more complex and intelligent at an exceptionally faster rate than humans are - eventually we will be outmatched. The Technological Singularity.

Intelligent? Hardly. Key word in Artificial Intelligence is artificial. I'm not a computer scientist, but I trust Penrose when he states that computers are limited since programs cannot prove all true statements. Maybe one day a machine will be able to produce a complete work out of art without being told how to do it. I simply have my doubts that it will happen. Besides, what is better?

I won't comment on if it in this particular instance it is good or bad... I just wanted to make you out like a Mozart fanboy...

Mission accomplished.

Uh oh.. bad things happened the last time that was said.

Well what was the point? Yes, so I like Mozart . . . My points are all still valid though, and you didn't actually listen to the piece before commenting.

Wut?

It is quite literally 'lifted'.

I couldn't be more literal. It's pieced together from actual sections of Mozart piano concerti, pasted together, and in different keys.

I could go right through the whole piece pointing out where each bar comes from in Mozart, though I'm too busy.

Is is put together logically though, but it's still bad music.

Anyway, what's your point? I know you never said you didn't listen. I assumed that, and you didn't refute it. Maybe you've listened now. Either way, The piece features direct copying from Mozart. Not that that's a bad thing, intrinsically, but then the only interesting thing is the structural aspects (which as I said before: good short term, bad long term).

OK, I'll do the first twenty bars just for sake of showing my point.

Main opening theme: same rhythm and key as K.467, but slightly altered a couple of the notes.

Wind & timpani refrain that follows this: exactly the same as the parallel place in K.467. (Rhythmically weak though.)

Next a sequential passage from one of the concertos in the teens (#17, in G, I think). This sequence is totally out of place and uncharacteristic: it should be in the development.

OK, now the 2nd theme is mostly original.

The section directly following the 2nd theme is almost exactly note for note a passage from the same place in concerto #9 in Eb.

This is followed by a surprise modulation again from concerto #17, to the flattened submediant. Mozart only does this in one piano concerto, so it's *really* obvious when you copy it.

The whole section following this is almost note for note the same as the same place in #17, including the very distinctive cadential section that follows (from exactly the same place in that concerto).

A small interjection of about 4 bars of original ritornello (but the style is copied exactly, of course). The end of the orchestral exposition is again exactly the same as #17.

Now the piano passages. I shall go through each bit, but ignore the orch. bits now.

First entry sounds like one of the early concertos.

Interjection (winds & timps from k.467, twice.)

Then the sequence from the exp. is repeated with piano figuration, exactly as #17.

Then a passage of piano figuration straight from k.467,

then yet another passage lifted verbatim, this time from k.503 (also in C). That's the bit where it turns minor briefly.

Then some Lh, Rh, Lh, Rh rising and falling arpeggios. This whole section is lifted from #17.

Then the (original) 2nd theme is written out for piano mimicking the same place in K.488.

Then more verbatim lifting from #9.

Then a really out of place bit of piano figuration from k.467, which then changes key really abruptly (I.e., the two stolen bits are stuck together with no modulation - no joking) and continues into another section from k.467.

This then segues into a bit straight from k.466, then k.503.

Then back to k.467 for the big cadence, and into a ritornello featuring butchered bits from k.503.

That's all I care to do. It's all lifted, bar a few notable bits (2nd theme, etc.)

If you know the originals, this patchwork makes nonsense.

I'm not being aggressive here, just proving my point.

Daniel's right. The process is lifting even if they claim it isn't. They deconstruct the music, take common elements from the style and then put it back together.

Hey, Mozart started out like that too! Just look at his very early piano pieces. They sometimes look like a wide variety of standard classical patterns strung together. He probably just took bits and pieces of the music he was surrounded with (maybe even unconsciously) and threw them together in a different sequence. I think that's how most very young composers start.

That's fine, but young humans have the ability to take what learned and expand upon it. I haven't really seen AI be able to create new neural networks themselves.

I think it's pretty easy to design a computer that can replicate alike sounding pieces, especially solo pieces. I could easily program something like that for inspiration. I don't want to though.

That's fine, but young humans have the ability to take what learned and expand upon it. I haven't really seen AI be able to create new neural networks themselves.

And let's say by new neural networks you mean something randomly branched off the ordinary. That is quite doable, but advancement in that technology WILL pose dangerous. Let's just stay in the copy-cat realm of computers for now. We don't need any purposeful bugs. I like where we are.