# Is the writing on the wall?



## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

Here's some food for thought for any young composer wanting to break certainly in to media composing (see from 14'30" and following) and perhaps concert composing too. I wonder if soon everybody and anybody will be "_creating"_ whatever they want to hear from music in their playlists with a few mouse clicks.


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

LOL

Maybe someday, but trusting AI to compose great music is currently in its embryonic stages, and may not ever really gestate to fruition.

So far it's able to generate generic music well, but when it's told to create great music it fails miserably, unless there is human post-generated assistance.


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## Hogwash (5 mo ago)

Would, perhaps, a piece composed by AI but performance is with human musicians bring emotional depth to the music?


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

Visual artists are having the same discussion about AI art. I'm not worried. AI Art cannot innovate. It merely mimics what it finds available on the web. And I think AI music is lagging far behind AI art.


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

As the presenter suggests, AI will only improve and doubtless at an exponential rate. I read recently that some programmers are already mystified as to how resulting output is derived from human input in some AI applications. Without doubt, autonomous AI creation in the arts (and music in particular) is either already here or on its way and likely sooner than we might think or want to believe. It's already beginning to impact media work for composers and is going to wreak havoc in an industry which is already over subscribed with composers trying to make a living and will likely re-write the job description for them over time.

Copyright laws governing AI and its consequences will have to be overhauled too with AI autonomy already a cause for concern in the creative arts, especially regarding how it might infringe human copyright. As @Weston has pointed out, this is very much a concern in the visual arts. The YT link above talks about how far AI has come in this regard using examples of pastiches by AI of Dali's surrealist style imagery with a piano. Regardless of whether the kind of practice that generates material displayed in the Dali example is a type of infringement or not, it is certainly poking around in very grey and difficult legal areas when it comes to copyright breaches. I see @Weston you think that innovation may be beyond AI, I think it will be the inevitable outcome of an ability to data mine all musics, especially when a form of randomness is programmed as part of the human input process. The parallels with human composition are very similar imo.

Perhaps somewhat surprisingly for some, the UK and a few other countries actually acknowledge and have written into law, protected rights for computer-only generated copyrightable work. This below from a UK government consultation (linked), that was looking for expert input on....

_1. Copyright protection for computer-generated works without a human author. These are currently protected in the UK for 50 years. But should they be protected at all and if so, how should they be protected?

2. Licensing or exceptions to copyright for text and data mining, which is often significant in AI use and development.

3. Patent protection for AI-devised inventions. Should we protect them, and if so, how should they be protected?_

Artificial Intelligence and Intellectual Property: copyright and patents


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

Hogwash said:


> Would, perhaps, a piece composed by AI but performance is with human musicians bring emotional depth to the music?


Having had my own music played by orchestras I can say that without doubt, its a given that players bring much in the way of added expression and musicality to the party no matter the source. In media work, I've heard some terrible midi mock-ups which when orchestrated where transformed into decent, passable pieces when recorded live. So there is undoubtedly a transformation and elevation courtesy of human performance that is injected into anything from sterile pastiche or robotic computer midi, through to the finest and most detailed Ravellian score.

In the YT link above the presenter talks about a Huawei AI that finished Schubert's 'Unfinished' and performed it with live players. The resulting music is generic as @pianozach says above, more climactic film score and cliche than symphony but when you think about what's going on here - what has been achieved - it's no stretch at all to see that refinement is not a (near!) future impossibility and neither is refined originality, especially given the eventual vast resource of online knowledge and experience AI will be able to muster and exploit as an influential starting point.


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## dko22 (Jun 22, 2021)

as music composition becomes ever more unimaginative and generic, I'm sure AI will replace 99% of it in a few years. And I couldn't care less. The small number of composers who really have something individual to say (including yourself, Mike) will continue as before, though no doubt with ever more assistance from technology. As AI doesn't have emotions, composers who have something personal to express will still be distinctive. I hope there will continue to be live music but even MIDI mockups can express the personality of the composer when done with care.


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

dko22 said:


> as music composition becomes ever more unimaginative and generic, I'm sure AI will replace 99% of it in a few years. And I couldn't care less. The small number of composers who really have *something individual to say* (including yourself, Mike) will continue as before, though no doubt with ever more assistance from technology. As AI doesn't have emotions, composers who have something personal to express will still be distinctive. I hope there will continue to be live music but even MIDI mockups can express the personality of the composer when done with care.


Back at ya David...
I agree with most of your post. There is much mediocrity, certainly in media music today that can easily be dismissed and surpassed in quality and know-how by AI generated music. The best defence for composers is to learn their craft as they see fit in order to develop, support and encourage their own uniqueness.
AI doesn't (yet?) have emotions but here's a question, does it need them? Echoing Stravinsky, music can take care of itself, it's invoking of emotion is as much a matter of how it is perceived by the listener as it is manipulation by the composer.


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## dko22 (Jun 22, 2021)

mikeh375 said:


> AI doesn't (yet?) have emotions but here's a question, does it need them?


when I wrote my comment about emotions, something like this was indeed at the back of my mind. I still think that the difference between a competent and a great composer is the expression of an identifiable individual emotional personality. The trouble is exactly that which Stravinsky to my mind doesn't have as his music is simply so diverse that one struggles to find the Stravinskian "soul" (I actually recently had a discussion with "humanist" composer Alexander Brincken on this very subject -- he claims to be influenced by Stravinsky while at the same time actually rather disliking him). Does that mean Stravinsky would be easier to replace with AI than, say, Mahler? I know I'm treading on dangerous ground here.


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

dko22 said:


> when I wrote my comment about emotions, something like this was indeed at the back of my mind. I still think that the difference between a competent and a great composer is the expression of an identifiable individual emotional personality. The trouble is exactly that which Stravinsky to my mind doesn't have as his music is simply so diverse that one struggles to find the Stavinskian "soul" (I actually recently had a disssion with "humanist" composer Alexander Bricnken on this very subject -- he claims to be influenced by Stravinsky while at the same time actually rather disliking him). Does that mean Stravinsky would be easier to replace with AI than, say, Mahler?* I know I'm treading on dangerous ground here.*


LOL.
Uh-oh...here's the tip of what can be a very murky iceberg. The balances of heart and mind, of imagination and adventure as opposed to grounding and intelligibility, surely have to be constantly regulated to make music coherent and perceptible during composition and the line that distinguishes these opposing and continually competing mindsets is movable in favour of one way of thinking or the other right? Even the chromatic wanderings and outbursts of the 19thC mostly had some control, some context, some technical point of reference. That aforementioned line is also exploitable by AI and in its infancy, it's logical that the technical (mind if you will) parameters will be more more amenable to mining I guess.

Perhaps then AI will grasp the creative mechanics of Stravinsky before it fully grasps music motivated from a different place. Even so, AI's capacity will eventually be up to the task I believe, of writing from a place the listener will perceive as a human 'feel' and given the inexhaustable breadth of knowledge it will acquire, it's hard to see how AI wont develop a 'personality' if allowed to via programming.


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