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#81

Composers & Music / Re: Did AI just kill classical...

Last post by tpaloj - Friday 17 May 2024, 07:24

I ask myself if AI will soon be able to create good recordings out of (possibly handwritten) scores. This would be a great possibility to listen to unsung music which would otherwise never be performed or recorded (e.g. the much too big operas of Wayditch).

I often ask the same and have been casually following improvements in OMR (optical music recognition) software. It appears to me that handwritten recognition is still far off, since these programs are still cping with some basic issues in recognizing printed music. But I think we're getting close to submitting any printed notation to such software and having it produce a reliable, decent quality audio rendition without too much user input at all.

I think mainstream pop/rock music makers are much more in danger of losing their jobs to AI tools than the classical scene, where the market is (at least still for the most part) rather more conscious of the performers' actually performing music to an historically rooted and informed standard.

#82

Composers & Music / Re: Did AI just kill classical...

Last post by tuatara442442 - Friday 17 May 2024, 01:56

I remember there was some experimenting with computer composed classical-esque music in the early 90s. This really isn't a new thing.

Yeah, David Cope is a big name among them. Centaur published recordings of his computer-composed music, as well as 39 volumes of Consortium to Distribute Computer Music (CDCM) recordings with compositions produced by many people. That was many years ago

#83

Composers & Music / Re: Did AI just kill classical...

Last post by tuatara442442 - Friday 17 May 2024, 01:43

It has no sense of form, theme and development, so it can't generate real counterpoint. I think the mechanism of large language model dictates it, that is predicting a likely next step using a given last step. While I think there is certainly the possiblility of it referencing some further past material that it processes, it doesn't know abstraction and "understand" what macroscopic pattern is. This, I think, is exemplified by its inability to correctly produce images of intricate decorative patterns.
The way to solve it, I think, is to let another AI trained with pattern abstractions edit the "source material". (Or human arrangers, which results in the rise of their importance).
There are two ways of AI composing, one is audio generation, the other is midi file generation. It is hard to edit the music itself with only an audio file and is defeating its own purpose transcribing it to sheet music. But an AI arranger of midi file could be trained. And I think an arranger AI could be trained on abstracted polyphonic inner workings, and it will rely on midi renditions of existing pieces as its training material. So it could be a good news for midi rendition makers. 

#84

Composers & Music / Re: Did AI just kill classical...

Last post by TerraEpon - Friday 17 May 2024, 01:09

I remember there was some experimenting with computer composed classical-esque music in the early 90s. This really isn't a new thing.

#85

Recordings & Broadcasts / Re: Recording of Raff's Samson

Last post by Alan Howe - Thursday 16 May 2024, 22:43

Even more excerpts are now available at jpc:
https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/art/joachim-raff-samson/hnum/11860991

#86

Composers & Music / Re: Did AI just kill classical...

Last post by Alan Howe - Thursday 16 May 2024, 22:11

That's a very exciting prospect, if it's a possibility.

#87

Composers & Music / Re: Did AI just kill classical...

Last post by der79sebas - Thursday 16 May 2024, 22:00

I ask myself if AI will soon be able to create good recordings out of (possibly handwritten) scores. This would be a great possibility to listen to unsung music which would otherwise never be performed or recorded (e.g. the much too big operas of Wayditch).

#88

Composers & Music / Re: Did AI just kill classical...

Last post by Alan Howe - Thursday 16 May 2024, 18:11

I take your point.

I just wondered whether AI-derived classical music (which is surely going to be unfamiliar) counts as 'unsung'? In the above brief article the violinist Daniel Kurganov says that he had some sort of hand in 'creating' the new music in the video...

#89

Recordings & Broadcasts / Re: BBC Proms 2024 Season

Last post by eschiss1 - Thursday 16 May 2024, 17:52

Heard a lot of grumps on Facebook about the less-classical concerts and pieces in these Proms, but I'll say that my opinion of the grumping can be summed up along the lines of wanting to have cake and eat it too, what with arts funding having been slashed, one, and nothing coming from nothing, two...

#90

Composers & Music / Re: Did AI just kill classical...

Last post by John Boyer - Thursday 16 May 2024, 17:12

Interesting topic, Alan, but does it really pertain in any way to our remit, unsung composers?