Why nobody writes music like Chopin anymore

[bwv 1080]

Because we can just program a computer to do it:

ftp://arts.ucsc.edu/pub/cope/chopin.mp3


From David Cope's Website:
http://arts.ucsc.edu/faculty/cope/experiments.htm


Quote:
I began Experiments in Musical Intelligence in 1981 as the result of a composer's block. My initial idea involved creating a computer program which would have a sense of my overall musical style and the ability to track the ideas of a current work such that at any given point I could request a next note, next measure, next ten measures, and so on. My hope was that this new music would not just be interesting but relevant to my style and to my current work. Having very little information about my style, however, I began creating computer programs which composed complete works in the styles of various classical composers, about which I felt I knew something more concrete.

My first exploration with Experiments in Musical Intelligence involved coding the rules of basic part-writing as I understood them, since part writing constitutes one of the primary superstructures of traditional tonal music. After much trial and error, my program produced a kind of vanilla music which basically adhered to these rules. While basically correct in terms of how the voices move one to another and still conform to classical triadic harmony, the music seemed, at least to the educated ear, lifeless and without much musical energy.

While some of the music composed using this approach did prove fairly successful, most of its output was equally uninteresting and unsatisfying. Having an intermediary - myself - form abstract sets of rules for composition seemed artificial and unnecessarily premeditative. As well, having to code new sets of rules for each new style encountered proved daunting. I therefore revised the program to create new output from music stored in a database. My idea was that every work of music contains a set of instructions for creating different but highly related replications of itself. These instructions, interpreted correctly, can lead to interesting discoveries about musical structure as well as, hopefully, create new instances of stylistically-faithful music.

My rationale for discovering such instructions was based, in part, on the concept of recombinancy. Recombinancy can be defined simply as a method for producing new music by recombining extant music into new logical successions. I describe this process in detail in my book Experiments in Musical Intelligence (1996). I argue there that recombinancy appears everywhere as a natural evolutionary and creative process. All the great books in the English language, for example, are constructed from recombinations of the twenty-six letters of the alphabet. Similarly, most of the great works of Western art music exist as recombinations of the twelve pitches of the equal-tempered scale and their octave equivalents. The secret lies not in the invention of new letters or notes but in the subtlety and elegance of their recombination.

Of course, simply breaking a musical work into smaller parts and randomly combining them into new orders almost certainly produces gibberish. Effective recombination requires extensive musical analysis and very careful recombination to be effective at even an elemental level no less the highly musical level of which I dreamed. For more details on how this process works, please see my three books on the subject from A-R Editions Computers and Musical Style, Experiments in Musical Intelligence, and The Algorithmic Composer and one from MIT Press Virtual Music.

Basically, Experiments in Musical Intelligence works using three basic principles:
(1) deconstuction (analyze and separate into parts)
(2) signatures (commonality - retain that which signifies style)
(3) compatibility (recombinancy - recombine into new works)

Since the early days of Experiments in Musical Intelligence, many audiences have heard its output in the styles of classical composers. The works have delighted, angered, provoked, and terrified those who have heard them. I do not believe that the composers and audiences of the future will have the same reactions. Ultimately, the computer is just a tool with which we extend our minds. The music our algorithms compose are just as much ours as the music created by the greatest of our personal human inspirations.

[Josquin des Prez]

Recombinancy can be defined simply as a method for producing new music by recombining extant music into new logical successions

Which is in essence not new but a mere recombining of the old. Redundant much?

[Josquin des Prez]

Why nobody composes like Chopin anymore?

Because after nearly two centuries of "pushing music forward" composers have forgotten how to compose.

Ho, you meant why nobody composes like Chopin anymore. Probably because Chopin is dead.

[mn dave]

Because after nearly two centuries of "pushing music forward" composers have forgotten how to compose.

JdP is on the rampage. 

[Josquin des Prez]

JdP is on the rampage. 

I'm like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hide. I'm generally quite apathetic and miserable but when my mood descends into the pits of despair then it's time to lash out and bark at the excesses of modernity in art or left wingery in general.

[Maciek]

Hm... I think I've seen this somewhere before...

(Actually, someone first posted it on the old site.)

[bwv 1080]

Hm... I think I've seen this somewhere before...

(Actually, someone first posted it on the old site.)

See Maciek, its all about marketing, not who did what first.  I posted it on its own thread with a catchy title, whereas you put it in a veiled comment in a thread about something else.  That's what you get for growing up in a commie country - no appreciation for salesmanship 

[Josquin des Prez]

This explains everything; maybe it's time to get laid? 

You are confusing me with Sean. True to my own nature, i repute sexual urges as the wiles of the devil.

[jochanaan]

...then it's time to lash out and bark at the excesses of modernity in art or left wingery in general.

And what about the excesses of the reactionary movement in art or right-wingery in general?

I suppose you realize that your namesake, like many of the great composers, was considered a radical in his day...

[Josquin des Prez]

And what about the excesses of the reactionary movement in art or right-wingery in general?

I think after Hitler people are more then weary of what a right winger with a few lose bolts and a complete lack of conscience can do, which makes extreme liberalism even more insidious since people are oblivious to it's dangers, or that it even poses a danger.

I suppose you realize that your namesake, like many of the great composers, was considered a radical in his day...

None of them ever rejected the tradition from which their art sprung. There's a difference between innovation and radicalism, and none of the great composers were radicals. Most of them understood the true value of art, new or old, and incorporated it in their work. The true radical sees the old as evil and the new as good, regardless of value (vice versa for the reactionary, of course).

[karlhenning]

Because after nearly two centuries of "pushing music forward" composers have forgotten how to compose.

(* yawn *)

[mikkeljs]

Because we can just program a computer to do it?

No! I think this is one of the biggest mistakes people do. Style is one thing, but the unique musical idea for each of Chopins works are as unique as any of a modern composers.

A computer program can generate a style but not invent a totally new idea. My old composition teacher said, it was easy to write a wienerclassical piece, but I think, writing a wienerclassical piece does only give you extra rules to follow, which only makes it harder. 

[Monsieur Croche]

I personally don't have much faith in Mr. Cope's endeavour. For the start, the extent to which the program can emulate Chopin's music is dependent on the programmer's knowledge of it. It does not compose in the style of Chopin; it composes in what Mr. Cope perceives is the style of Chopin. The accuracy of his conception is of course open to debate. Further, programs, by their very nature, are designed to follow the rules set for them (to state the painfully obvious), while human composers, on the other hand, have the inevitable tendency to break rules, even self-imposed ones. The program would also have to assume that the style of the composer remains constant once it hits maturity, when actually it is almost always gradually and subtly evolving over time. All these translate to very little room for creativity and innovation; it is all craft and no inspiration. Give the audience one, two works, and even the most expert may be fooled; a prolonged exposure would, on the other hand, reveal the tedious uniformity of these computer-generated works, and expose them as cheap imitations.

But suppose it were possible: What is Mr. Cope trying to accomplish by this? Perhaps I am being overly sensitive, and too conservative for my own good, but I would consider this more an insult to the creative power of the human spirit rather than a triumph of technology. I imagine the day when audiences can have their symphony a la Tchaikovsky on demand would be a dark day for the contemporary music scene!

Now, I am not going to declare this entire contraption useless, and I have no problems if Mr. Cope is creating this as a mere tool to aid him in composition or musical analysis, but let us not take things to the extreme.

[mikkeljs]

Yes, style is unique in every work.

Well, does anybody know someone, who  actually compose almost identically with Chopin? It would be interresting to have their opinion and see if they would agree on the critique on their music.

[(poco) Sforzando]

I'm like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hide. I'm generally quite apathetic and miserable but when my mood descends into the pits of despair then it's time to lash out and bark at the excesses of modernity in art or left wingery in general.

We like you best when you're apathetic and miserable.

[DavidRoss]

It's hardly a mystery.  Here's why:

[Sergeant Rock]

True to my own nature, i repute sexual urges as the wiles of the devil.

That explains so much.

Sarge

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

It's hardly a mystery.  Here's why:

Been there, at Père-Lachaise in Paris. But a whole contingent of Polish pilgrims/tourists in front of me gave me a worse view of Chopin's grave than this beautiful picture!

[orbital]

Because we can just program a computer to do it:

ftp://arts.ucsc.edu/pub/cope/chopin.mp3

Not to derail the thread, but this is horrible

[eyeresist]

'Cos he's dead.

Or did someone say that already?