Senin, 02 Juli 2012

Roll over, Beethoven: London orchestra play piece written by a computer (but listening to THIS, human composers may not be out of jobs quite yet...)

Roll over, Beethoven: London orchestra play piece written by a computer (but listening to THIS, human composers may not be out of jobs quite yet...)

By Rob Waugh

PUBLISHED: 06:59 EST, 2 July 2012 | UPDATED: 06:59 EST, 2 July 2012

The London Symphony Orchestra is to play a piece of music composed by a computer program.

Until the LSO was handed the score, no human had adjusted, inspected or corrected the music.

It is all the work of the computer program, created by a team at the University of Malaga and running on a 'cluster' of computers built for the purpose.

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Until the LSO was handed the score, no human had adjusted, inspected or corrected the music

Until the LSO was handed the score, no human had adjusted, inspected or corrected the music

The casing for the computer cluster that houses 'Iamus' the composer

The casing for the computer cluster that houses 'Iamus' the composer

It's the first time music composed by a computer has been considered good enough for top-flight classical musicians to play.

A CD of the performance will be released in Steptember.

The orchestra is recording the program's work this week in Malaga.

The only thing its human 'handlers' specify is the rough length they want the finished piece to be, and what instruments Iamus will compose for.

Early reviews say that the sounds are jarring, ominous and spooky - and not dissimilar to modern classical pieces.

Computers have already DJed at dance events, using hydraulic arms from car factories, but an orchestra playing the 'work' of a machine is a new departure.

'When we tell people, they think it's a trick, 'Francisco Vico of the University of Malaga team which designed Iamus said in an interview with The Guardian.

'Some simply don't believe us. Others say it's just creepy.'

Here's one I made earlier: One of Iamus's first works

Here's one I made earlier: One of Iamus's first works

'A computer cluster, named Iamus, has been specifically built to fully exploit the potential of this technology,' say the team.

'Iamus is dedicated to compose melodies, which are collected in an ever growing repository of music of several genres. As this technology develops, longer and more complex music fragments are generated.'

Iamus 'mutates' sounds to create its music, altering basic material in a process its creators say is similar to evolution.

'As evolutionproceeds, we get longer and more elaborated pieces,' says Vico.

Here's what other readers have said. Why not add your thoughts, or debate this issue live on our message boards.

The comments below have not been moderated.

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When I went to visit the Millennium Dome they had a room in which a computer was synthesizing a piece of music that theoretically would continue forever. I often wondered what happened to it when the O2 took over.

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Pretty good, reminds me of Stravinsky. - Edward, Dundee, 02/7/2012 14:38..............I thought it more like Philip Glass..........It improves into the second half of the composition if people can listen long enough. I quite like it too, very interesing and has potential.

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(Continued from above) And they will go on, to produce work that surpasses us. Art that moves beyond our realm of experience. If you play Beethoven at a colony of ants, do they understand it? Are they even aware of it? You can like or dislike the piece above, based on logical or emotive reasoning. But reactive nay-saying is irrelevant. Mac Hine.

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(Continued from above) And they will go on, to produce work that surpasses us. Art that moves beyond our realm of experience. If you play Beethoven at a colony of ants, do they understand it? Are they even aware of it? You can like or dislike the piece above, based on logical or emotive reasoning. But reactive nay-saying is irrelevant. Mac Hine.

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(Contunied from above) But all of this, when you break it down, is just numbers. Large and complex numbers, certainly, but numbers all the same. We calculate and manipulate them with our biological computers and our bodies comply. When you catch and throw a ball, when you have a conversation with someone or when you create art; the body responds to a sequence of calculations, based on stored information and new input. It appears to be magical, but it isn’t. I said ‘currently’ in the first paragraph. At some point in the future, artificial intelligences will be able to calculate numbers in the *way* we do now. The machines, themselves, will be so complex as to be deemed alive, by our definition of the word. In fact, calling them artificial at all will be incorrect. At that point, they will be able to create pieces of music/art that are perfect (subjectivism excluded), saying just what is intended, manipulating our emotions as any human can. (Continued below)

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I shake my head sadly at some of the responses here. I *liked* listening to this. Was it Bach? Or Mozart? Or any number of modern composers it at first appears to emulate? Well, no... obviously not. And the truth is, art by humans will stimulate our emotional centres, based on shared experience by artist and audience alike, whereas machines currently don’t have a clue what they’re actually doing. Because they’re not conscious. As it happens, you could see the computer that scored this piece as nothing more than an extension of us. It is a man-made thing, after all. So what we’re hearing is actually a kind of translation. The human brain is an amazing thing. A highly developed biological computer. We’re capable of astounding physical feats. We can mess about with the set of tools we call ‘science’ and shoot a tiny capsule containing men into space, landing it on a body of rock orbiting our planet. Or cure disease. Or blow up an entire city. We can… imagine. (Continued below)

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Dont know about Bflat its F awful

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Computer only produces what has been programmed for... in this case is the program that was very badly written and as result a disconnected-classic-jazz... blame the programmer not the computer! Coz the computer only executes the program...

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Sounds like 3 musicians all playing what they like in separate rooms.

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Pretty good, reminds me of Stravinsky.

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