I respond to the double article that appeared as Metanexus: Views, October 22, 2001, and [Metanexus: Views, 2002.01.30, and which] treats EMI (Experiments in Musical Intelligence), a computer program that analyzes and copies a composer’s music.
“Let us commence by setting several decisive points:
The process is utterly dependent upon the prior work of a composer. No composer, no synthetic sound. If there had never been a Johann Sebastian Bach, then the Brandenburg Concerts could never have been artificially plagiarized no matter how genial the technique employed.”
This is true, though I would take issue with the term “synthetic.” Composers have, since the beginning of music itself, heard the music of other composers and in so doing imitated many aspects of that music. Doesn’t this mean that all music therefore is “synthetic?” Or is this term employed here to distinguish machine creations from human ones? Interestingly, this term seems to have a pejorative meaning in music, whereas in other art forms it has more positive meanings. For example, much of what we see in films today is synthetic (action, backgrounds, voices, etc.) and yet one would hardly take the time to differentiate Star Wars from Love Story simply on the basis that one had synthetic parts to it and the other did not.
“In itself, this is demonstration enough that a composer’s “Soul” remains unblemished.”
I have no idea what this means. The suggestion here is that a composer’s soul is somehow embodied in a grouping of black dots and lines on a sheet of paper known as music notation. There certainly is a somewhat agreed to realization of this notation. However, this does not, to me at least, suggest that a composer’s soul is somehow present. I prefer to believe that those dots and lines when realized in a performance resonate with my soul (whatever that is).
“This may be dramatically demonstrated by asking the musical coryphee to tell us who is being copied as he listened to machine music. If he can differentiate between a rehash of a Vivaldi violin concerto and a Bach or Telemann composition for the same instrument, then it is the distinctive characteristics of the composer he is listening to, not the cleverness of the electronic device employed.”
Now we move from “synthetic” to “rehash.” I am amazed at the terminology applied to Emmy’s output, often by people who’ve never even heard it. However, I do believe that the sentiment expressed above is true. I call these distinctive characteristics “signatures” and “earmarks” and have written extensively about them in articles and books.
“The process is completely unable to suggest growth in a composer’s work.”
Emmy can certainly “suggest” what a composer might have developed into stylistically. How is this possible? I believe it’s because composers use elements of music they’ve heard and even composed themselves in new pieces in different arrangements. This is exactly how Emmy works.
“If one commences with Gustav Mahler’s First Symphony, no electronic device could inform us ahead of time that a soul-rending, massive, atonal chord would figure in the first movement of his Tenth symphony.”
The suggestion here is that a “person” rather other Emmy could have informed us of this. Aside from this, however, I have thought long and hard about this problem for years and developed a method which I suggest could suggest future possibilities (I underscore the word “suggest” here!). This method involves including in the database works of other composers which the composer whose work I am trying to emulate might have heard. This is a very inexact science. However, by downplaying these extra works (giving them small probabilities of use) they can “influence” but not “degrade” the final results in ways which do suggest possible future directions. The results are quite interesting.
“The process cannot synthesize two or more styles distinctive to any combination of composers, each working in his own fashion.”
This is an interesting statement given that I have used Emmy effectively in this way a couple of times (for the most part, the results are otherwise ineffective). However, please note my comments in the previous response.
“Nor can it sense the possibility that an unknown composer could incorporate in his work elements that we normally associate with Richard Strauss (viz. his ‘Rosenkavalier’), others with Puccini (viz. ‘La Boheme’) and yet other with Verdi (viz. ‘Othello’). Yet this composer, sadly neglected today, but strikingly original in his work, exists: Franz Schreker: ‘Die ferne Klange,’ ‘Die Gezeichneten.’”
Again, I refer to my earlier comments.
“But the ability to compose in a given composers fashion during a distinctive phase of his life can be HIGHLY commendable there where the composer’s death prevented the completion of his last works. Consider the later movements of Gustav Mahler’s Tenth Symphony, which exists today in a concert version produced by Deryck Cooke who was left to his own devices in reconstructing the score.”
Actually, there are five versions of this symphony available (see Slatkin’s wonderful recording where a second CD actually includes the same passage as interpreted by the different orchestrators). I also point Mr. Conley to my website where he will find a complete grand opera arguably in the style of Mahler with a libretto based on Mahler’s letters. Mahler had always “wanted” to compose an opera.
“Of crucial importance to an electronic device’s creation of music of any genuine substance is the matter of structural form, the interrelation between its elements.”
This is probably not the point here, but the use of the terms “electronic device” are strange to me. Software (and even hardware for that matter) are simply reflections of programmers and builders. The implication is that such devices are capable of accomplishing things beyond those which they were programmed to accomplish. I have yet to find such a device. Emmy does precisely what I programmed it to do. I could have created each of its outputs myself without the aid of a computer. However, it would have taken months, even years, to accomplish even the creation of a simple invention. Computers (electronic device) provide speed and accuracy for the instructions of human programmers. Many of my professional colleagues are dumbfounded by the debates caused by Emmy believing that its output is my output facilitated by an electronic device (not “created by” an electronic device).
“Stacey, you wrote, ‘Music soothes the savage beast, or so I have been told. And I think we have always thought that this soothing capacity resided in the emotional depths and spirituality heights achieved by music. The story goes that music is an expression of the human soul.’
Maybe we’ve lost very little. Maybe it makes little difference. Perhaps we’ve even won a bit on the side. In terms of the cyborg future predicted for mankind, perhaps we have even crossed the Rubicon and, far from replacing a defective fleshy foot, thigh, lung or circulatory system with an advanced, electronic one, we have successfully transplanted an unimprovable superior human component into a machine. Perhaps we have found a new receptacle for the human soul!”
I do very much appreciate Mr. Conley’s thoughtful and intelligent response to the article (or I wouldn’t have spent this time in responding). However, I must disagree with both he and Stacey here. I do not think there is a transmission of soul in music nor that music is an expression of soul (again, I add, whatever it is that the word “soul” means). Rather, to me, music is an arrangement of sounds and silences, often but not always represented by graphic notations, that, when performed, resonate with aspects of our being (based on cultural, personal, and many other extraordinarily complex phenomena). Emmy often gets credit for accomplishing things it couldn’t possibly accomplish. Intelligence, for one. Emmy is not intelligent. Emmy is not even musical (it could as easily be processing cookbook recipes as music as far as the program is concerned - in fact, the basic structure of Emmy has been modeled for use in economics and architecture, etc.). Emmy is a tool. Having spent 20+ years developing the program, I like to think of it as a wonderful tool, but it is still nothing but a tool. Rhapsodizing about its soul, intelligence, etc. will not make it so (unless something aside from me has had a hand in shaping it).
I hope these comments are of use.
Dave Cope