Musicians Play Music Better Than Computers
from the in-case-you-didn't-know-that dept
We all know that computers can beat humans at chess these days, but they're apparently still falling short of humans in some areas -- such as music. This is unlikely to surprise many people, but a study of how people's brains reacted to music that was played by human musicians vs. computers found that our brains respond more to the music from musicians. Basically, it sounds like our brains can detect the fact that humans play music with more feeling, and we respond accordingly. So now who's going to program computer musicians to understand the meaning of "Once more... with feeling!"
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
The Trons..?
Had to mention them 'cos they're a Hamilton (aka Hamiltron) band and live just two streets over from me..
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: The Trons..?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
ahhh ye old humans
listening back to the song i said out loud "doh i should've fixed that flub on the guitar track". the experienced engineer snidely remarked something to the effect of, "yeah you wouldn't want it to sound like a human played it or anything, would you?"
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: ahhh ye old humans
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Machines are perfectly capable
It's not the computer's fault that it is a better music player than humans are. It's the human composer and songwriter's fault that they don't accurately convey what you are supposed to play.
A musician is forced to make up new music on the fly to cover for the inadequacies of the sheet music.I have never heard a musician play sheet music the way it is written. They always vary it somewhat to make it listenable.
If composers and songwriters didn't suck so much at writing music then anyone could play music that sounded good with the right button presses.
Machines not making music that people want to listen to is the direct fault of humans (in this case composers and song writers) who are bad at putting what they actually want you to play to paper.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Machines are perfectly capable
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Machines are perfectly capable
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Whos going to program computer musicians to understand the meaning of
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Bad research
Most music we listen to is created on a computer these days. From the rhythm on ZZ Top's Eliminator CD to the hits we hear today, electronic music is the music of today. Listen to U2 in concert and ask where all that sound is coming from - answer it's electronic there are only 4 people on stage not 20.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
It's just that musicians are human.
It's the fact that a human player interprets what's there and adds something of themselves to the playing. Even the same musician will play the same piece differently depending on how they are feeling and skilled ones with sympathise/empathise with the audience too.
On one occasion a piece maybe played a touch slower and more smoothly and on another when there is more buzz in the air a little faster and more stacato.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Emotion is like the wind. You can't see it, but you know it's there, and you can feel it and see the effects of it. It's a human quality that will never exist in any computer, no matter how advanced AI gets (don't even get me started on Data and holograms in Star Trek). Our emotions and passions are what drives us to accomplish things, and allow us to produce such beautiful works of art. Sorry, but no computer will ever replicate that, and I think anybody that's trying to do so is completely wasting their time, money, and life in general.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Chess is a game based...
Maybe true today, but I wouldn't hold my breath on that belief or travel "around" the world, you might fall off.
>> t's more about the emotions that drive the creation of the music in the first place.
Emotions are just a consistent theme in a variable range. They really aren't all the special and if someone cared they could definitely replicate using existing technology to add "emotion" to the music. The hard part would be figuring out what emotion to add at this point though with AI.
>> It's a human quality that will never exist in any computer, no matter how advanced AI gets
Just because we still don't fully understand how we work or think, why would you conclude that the human "quality" can't be duplicated? At some point we will fully understand and be able to emulate a brain, at that point I like to see what you say.
>> Our emotions and passions are what drives us to accomplish things... but no computer will ever replicate that,
Actually, complex processes in the brain is what drives us and once those processes are fully understood you can bet they'll be duplicated in a machine.
>> I think anybody that's trying to do so is completely wasting their time, money, and life in general.
No, that would be spending way too much time reading and leaving comments on TechDirt :), but making and understanding things - that is truly human (at least for now!)
Freedom
Never Forget...
9/11 - The day the terrorists struck.
7/09 - The day our Senators struck and voted our freedoms away.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
The score was a classical piano piece. The human player naturally made little variations in timing and volume that gave it character-- that's what makes a good instrumentalist good, apart from precision.
The computer then played the same piece-- perfectly. It sounded flat and uninteresting. The melody was still pretty and clever, the harmony still correct, but it just wasn't very engaging to listen to.
Then the computer played with little variations in timing and volume. At first it sounded really good, it began to convey a feeling, a sense that the player was sharing something with the listener. But then after a few seconds it went sour. The subtle message turned out to be gibberish, it had no poetry, it went nowhere-- but still kept going. It was as if the artist had put his arm around my shoulder and said "you know, to me this piece resounds the violet flan gabwee heptakknoo zz8_roWk hurricane bismuth^^..."
Eventually they'll learn to make a machine-generated pattern that really sounds like subtle allusion. And who knows, maybe it will be; maybe the machine that plays with what sounds like real feeling can do so only because its internal structure is so complex, so full of inner tensions and frustrations and impulses, that we will have to recognize it as a being with real emotions. Not a human being, maybe not a thinking one, but a feeling one, and a musician.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
if you hum a few bars i can fake it
the relationships that humans have with computers are based on the explicit understanding that the computer, or rather its software (an analog for the machine's soul), is not "real". its intelligence is considered to be an imitation of the human equivalent and certainly not the real thing. we use terms like "simulated" or "virtual" when talking about computers to underscore that fact.
teaching a computer to fake not only intelligence, but a soul would be a great accomplishment, but that kind of work would also be quite dangerous. it would point out that we humans are not so unique and special after all. if you can design software that is indistinguishable from a human in some capacity, i.e. the turing test, what would that do to the already diminishing value of human life?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Agreement
[ link to this | view in chronology ]