# Computer Killing Off the Composer



## KRoad (Jun 1, 2012)

Hi,

Very interesting item for this board.

Please discuss...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18449939


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## Lunasong (Mar 15, 2011)

And thus you can create pop music.


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## crmoorhead (Apr 6, 2011)

Lunasong said:


> And thus you can create pop music.


I agree.

Very interesting article though. I remember reading about virtually identical experiment involving designing circuits. 100 components were randomly combined with a design in mind.Those that didn't do anything were discarded and those that did something were discarded. This was repeated for several generations with the end goal in mind. At different points characteristics emerged that were some way towards the specifications of the final design. After many generations, circuits emerged that actually worked more efficiently than those designed by electrical engineers given the same design specifications. Some designs had components that didn't even appear to be connected to the main circuit and yet, when removed, the design failed to function.

Back to music. The 'end goal' appears to be the maximum appeal to audience members but, it must be said, this isn't a very worthwhile goal. Popular trends don't start off popular and the best this can do is average out what is currently in vogue. In the article he uses the term 'people's music purest form'. There would have to be something unique about the music for it to not just sound bland to the test audience, but I don't think that this process can be used to create anything innovative or to evolve music. It might be an interesting further experiment to see if this program could be used to create film music according to a certain specification and test it wih audiences. One might also say that, in popular music, the words are as important (if not more so) than the actual music.

I can't remember the precise quote (someone has it in their sig line on this forum) but it runs along the lines of 'art is not for all and if it is for all it is not art'. Thus, for artistic creativity, the popularity test seems useless. It might be worthwhile asking what this program could do if the end goal was given different specifications and used as a composing tool, but this would still require a composer or musician to do the assessing.

I am also assuming that this is for electronic music of some kind. I doubt that the program is able to factor in the limitations of instruments.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

KRoad said:


> Hi,
> 
> Very interesting item for this board.
> 
> ...


Awesome! I love it!


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## StevenOBrien (Jun 27, 2011)

It's the difference between having a computer randomly evolve a set of words that sound pleasing together and a poet writing poetry, in my opinion. It's interesting, but I doubt it will ever overshadow human art. There are actually programs that will write music faithfully in the style of Mozart or Bach, but somehow even these manage to sound bland.


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## KRoad (Jun 1, 2012)

StevenOBrien said:


> It's the difference between having a computer randomly evolve a set of words that sound pleasing together and a poet writing poetry, in my opinion.
> 
> True, but as one who teaches poetry - there is poetry and there is poetry - so to speak. A satisfactory, all-embracing definition or concept of poetry has yet to be formulated. Words that sound pleasing together and/or evoke pleasing imagery could be said to qualify as poetry. All depends on your point of view. Re: music, some here would argue that atonal and some modernist music doesn't _really_ qualify the label "classical" music.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

What struck me about the loops were that all had a very strong beat, which has to be one of the easiest ways to make music appealing; all had the "melody" in the upper registers; I think all were in 2/4 time, but I didn't count them all so this is a thing I felt rather than a thing I checked on.

But most of all, they were all so short that there could be no opportunity for development. No one would listen to more than a minute of any of them without getting bored. Future programs will have to allow for greater length, and then maybe we can really get somewhere.


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## LordBlackudder (Nov 13, 2010)

what a loud of vollovks


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## Klavierspieler (Jul 16, 2011)

Perfect music? Blegh.


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## Kopachris (May 31, 2010)

I personally like the earlier tunes ("0 generations" and "150 generations," especially) better than the later ones.


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## Guest (Jun 19, 2012)

I prefer the earlier loops as well, though they're all pretty awful.*

Anyway, nowhere in this report are the key terms defined: "horrible," "better," "quality." Not how one expects a genuine scientist to go about things. And who was it who listened to all the loops and voted on them. Right. That chimera, "the public."

So whatever the researchers thought they were doing, what they really ended up demonstrating was something about people and how people choose. Nothing about music at all.

And the earthshaking discovery? That music can evolve without composers. No, duh. Music has been around, so far as we know, as long as humans have been around, and people have been making music without composers for all but the past few hundred years. And even that has been largely in Europe and in Europe's satellites (U.S., Australia and so forth).

*When they define "horrible," "better," and "quality," then I'll define "awful." Fair enough?


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## crmoorhead (Apr 6, 2011)

some guy said:


> Anyway, nowhere in this report are the key terms defined: "horrible," "better," "quality." Not how one expects a genuine scientist to go about things. And who was it who listened to all the loops and voted on them. Right. That chimera, "the public."
> 
> So whatever the researchers thought they were doing, what they really ended up demonstrating was something about people and how people choose. Nothing about music at all.


I think you are missing the point of the experiment. It is an experiment about evolutionary principles, not music. The object is to demonstrate how the most random of beginnings can adapt by reacting to a driving imperative (in this case, the subjective opinions of the audience).

The fact is that 'horrible' and 'better' don't need to be defined because the assumption is that the majority of people will be able to make a similar subjective judgement. This proof of this assumption being correct is evident in the fact that the music actually does change between generations. If there were no consensus at all, then the music would never evolve. Complex results from simple rules is something that is fundamental to many sciences.

The rhetoric about not needing composers is not really a serious suggestion, IMO.


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## Klavierspieler (Jul 16, 2011)

On a side note: did anyone else think of the Terminator when they saw the thread title? I did.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

People wrote the program: people were called in and their highly personal and subjective tastes and reactions to the loops were paid attention to - as part of the process.

It is an interesting demo, as someone pointed out, of 'selective' evolution(s), and conscious 'selects,' at that 

This does not at all imply that music is going to happen without people - nor that it would evolve without people. People invented it, after all.


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## Guest (Jun 19, 2012)

crmoorhead said:


> I think you are missing the point of the experiment.


I think what I'm saying is that it's a pointless experiment.



crmoorhead said:


> It is an experiment about evolutionary principles, not music. The object is to demonstrate how the most random of beginnings can adapt by reacting to a driving imperative (in this case, the subjective opinions of the audience).


Well, it's not the most random of beginnings, but even if it were, DUH! Of course reacting will change things.



crmoorhead said:


> The fact is that 'horrible' and 'better' don't need to be defined because the assumption is that the majority of people will be able to make a similar subjective judgement. This proof of this assumption being correct is evident in the fact that the music actually does change between generations. If there were no consensus at all, then the music would never evolve. Complex results from simple rules is something that is fundamental to many sciences.


But in this instance, we seem to be getting simple results as well. (And the music, I know it's not about the music, "evolves" from complex to simple.)



crmoorhead said:


> The rhetoric about not needing composers is not really a serious suggestion, IMO.


We agree about this part. However, as I suggested, music has done without composers for thousands of years all over the world. The composer is a fairly recent phenomenon, confined geographically to only a few places.

Music has never needed composers.


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## Petwhac (Jun 9, 2010)

some guy said:


> Music has never needed composers.


Except music that is composed.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Genetic algorithms similar to DarwinTunes have been used to optimize various applications such as aerodynamic drag in vehicles. These algorithms work quite well, but the applications differ from music creation in that those applications have very clear selection criteria (i.e. material weight, aerodynamic drag coefficient, etc.) that can be calculated and used to determine which designs are superior. The experiments using DarwinTunes use random listeners to give scores to the music. The selection criteria are not well defined and presumably vary from person to person and from listening event to listening event. Presumably the selection coefficient (number that measures the rate of selection) is small and the direction changes with time. Also the nature of the selection process makes it extremely slow compared to other applications.

It's not clear to me how to use listeners in such a way that the selection produces even more interesting results. One could add some selection criteria in addition to the human listeners, but that would add a bias that is not really intended. One could have listeners who specifically enjoy certain types of music (modern classical, jazz, country, etc.). Perhaps the best method for now is to add length to the tracks, get more listeners, and continue the trials well past 1000 generations. After all 1000 generations is small number for normal genetic algorithm applications.


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## crmoorhead (Apr 6, 2011)

> Well, it's not the most random of beginnings, but even if it were, DUH! Of course reacting will change things.


The importance is not in the fact that things will change, but in the fact they have created a mechanism for this to happen, for music to 'evolve' in a short space of time. This is at a basic level, but a more complex system would certainly create more interesting and useful results. From a scientific point of view, if not an artistic one. These kinds of experiments provide useful results for people doing research into artificial intelligence, among other things.

It is also quite obvious that many people don't believe that evolution can give rise to diversification and specialisation of animals. This program uses evolutionary principles to adapt a musical 'creature' to have certain characteristics.



> But in this instance, we seem to be getting simple results as well. (And the music, I know it's not about the music, "evolves" from complex to simple.)


You misunderstand what I am saying. I am saying that by using simple _rules_ you can create a complex results such as, in this case, creating music that comforms to cultural standards of rhythm, consonance and melody from what can reasonably described as noise in which none of these elements are present. The paper published by them is available online and this premise is discussed within it as well as how they measure these elements. It is also not the case that the music simply goes from complex to simple. It starts off atonal and random, tends towards some simple and rather boring music to establish rules and then evolves into music with multiple voices based on principles that were laid down in the middle section.

There is a famous experiment called Langton's Ant in which a "universe" is created using simple rules that devolves into seemingly chaotic behaviour before resolving into a cyclic behaviour. This cyclic result hasnt yet, as far as I know, been explained. This is not really related, but it is fascinating nonetheless.



> We agree about this part. However, as I suggested, music has done without composers for thousands of years all over the world. The composer is a fairly recent phenomenon, confined geographically to only a few places.


From the first few lines of the paper they published:

The music made by the world's cultures is immensely diverse
(1, 2). Because music is transmitted from one musician to
another, and frequently modified in transmission, this diversity
must arise from descent by modification rather like the diversity
of living things, languages, and other cultural artifacts (3). What
drives this process? It is often supposed that the music we listen
to is primarily the product of aesthetic decisions made by "producers"
(i.e., composers, performers) (4). Early Greek texts speak
of specialist composers/performers, and the rudiments of formal
musical theory, at least 2,500 y ago (5), and specialist composer/
performers are found in many other societies as well (6). However,
the reproduction, spread, and persistence of particular songs
must also depend on the preferences of "consumers" (i.e., the
people who listen to them) (7). These preferences are also clearly
a selective process and, like any selective process, can have a
creative role (8). Disentangling the roles of composers, producers,
and consumers in shaping musical diversity is difficult in existing
musical cultures.



> Music has never needed composers.


We also did without writers (and indeed writing) for thousands of years, but I won't pretend that we could do without either. Composers arose as a byproduct of civilisation and evolution of art. I don't really believe that 'composers' are as confined and limited as you claim as anyone who creates a melody or song is a composer whether they have music notation or not. Furthermore, several modern composers (as we would understand the term) have shied away from the strict formalism of notation and given performers more general instructions, even creating aleatory music that is different with each performance. Composing is simply creating music as opposed to merely copying others.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

KRoad said:


> Hi,
> 
> Very interesting item for this board.
> 
> ...


sure you don't need a composer to create music, but good music needs brains to create.


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## crmoorhead (Apr 6, 2011)

mmsbls said:


> It's not clear to me how to use listeners in such a way that the selection produces even more interesting results. One could add some selection criteria in addition to the human listeners, but that would add a bias that is not really intended. One could have listeners who specifically enjoy certain types of music (modern classical, jazz, country, etc.). Perhaps the best method for now is to add length to the tracks, get more listeners, and continue the trials well past 1000 generations. After all 1000 generations is small number for normal genetic algorithm applications.


I was thinking along these lines too. It would be interesting to see how to bias the evolution towards specific tastes or genres. It might also be a fun idea to entertain the notion (in a much more advanced version) of being able to pick already existing music that a user enjoys and using that as the starting point to evolve new music. The short length of the music in this experiment also seems highly limiting, but their goal (as per their paper) was only to measure how certain characteristics converged with those calculated from a selection of contemporary western popular music, not to create an instant music generating program.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

some guy said:


> I think what I'm saying is that it's a pointless experiment.
> ...._Music has never needed composers._


Ridiculous~ A title such as composer or not, whether made by an individual or individuals, *people make it up*


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

KRoad said:


> StevenOBrien said:
> 
> 
> > It's the difference between having a computer randomly evolve a set of words that sound pleasing together and a poet writing poetry, in my opinion.
> ...


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## KRoad (Jun 1, 2012)

PetrB said:


> KRoad said:
> 
> 
> > Ah, you sound like one of those generation of wafflers where every and anything might just possibly be of real and or equal value to the good stuff.
> ...


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## PlaySalieri (Jun 3, 2012)

Has anyone seen this article?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/jul/01/iamus-computer-composes-classical-music

I only listened to 5 seconds or so of each piece and at least picked out correctly the Mahler as not composed by a computer. Though I failed to find the computer composed piece out of the other 4.

It strikes me that computers will be limited to the skill of the programmer? And how can a computer assess the beauty of a musical idea? I can't see artificial intelligence as a serious competitor to human composers.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

I don't know about whether a computer will ever experience the beauty of music the way we do (maybe, but who knows?) but I wouldn't be at all surprised if a computer discovers algorithms for creating beautiful melodies, etc....


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## crmoorhead (Apr 6, 2011)

stomanek said:


> Has anyone seen this article?
> 
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/jul/01/iamus-computer-composes-classical-music
> 
> ...


Fascinating article! I would agree that the skill of the programmer is a large part in the effectiveness of the end result. The programmer should also know a great deal about music and if 'program music' could be devised (I mean this in the sense of the opposite of absolute music) then this would also be very interesting. Analysis of sounds and basic knowledge of how to construct things like theme and variation, sonata or rondo form would open up a lot of possibilities, but also require more and more input from a human or group of humans.

As far as artificial intelligence vs human intelligence goes, the scope of artificial intelligence is almost beyond limit and defined by the complexity of the program. If a computer could compose music that cannot be distinguished from conventionally composed music by 90% of the population, would that be counted as successful?


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## crmoorhead (Apr 6, 2011)

Took me ages to find the right link to listen to the pieces. Anyway, it seems a biased test for people unfamiliar with contemporary compositiions. The computer's music sounds like twelve-tone music or reminiscent of Stravinsky's later works. Having modernist composers compete with the computer could possibly highlight the weakness inherent in that style rather than the effectiveness of the computer program. It would be more useful to ask musicians or composers how the pieces could be improved and then program modified to include more features.


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