Computers Are Incapable Of Creatively Writing Music

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commonsense
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Re: Computers Are Incapable Of Creatively Writing Music

Post by commonsense »

Again, some one has to define “creatively” and explain what”writing music” means.
commonsense
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Re: Computers Are Incapable Of Creatively Writing Music

Post by commonsense »

Okay, suit yourself. Since you didn’t provide definitions for me to be obligated to use, I’ll provide the definitions that you are obliged to use.

Creatively:
adv from adj creative from v create
Acting in a fashion that results in something being made, generated or produced.


Writing Music:
phrase, v or ger, n
The act of documenting symbols that can give instructions on how to use instruments or voices to make a sound or series of sounds having melody, harmony and/or tempo.
commonsense
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Re: Computers Are Incapable Of Creatively Writing Music

Post by commonsense »

BTW: if you think that music must be emotional or pleasing, just listen to the Iceland Symphony Orchestra playing anything. You can almost feel the eruption of a volcano on your tympanic membranes. Should be renamed Iceland Cacophony Orchestra.
Dimebag
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Re: Computers Are Incapable Of Creatively Writing Music

Post by Dimebag »

commonsense wrote: Tue Mar 30, 2021 11:38 pm BTW: if you think that music must be emotional or pleasing, just listen to the Iceland Symphony Orchestra playing anything. You can almost feel the eruption of a volcano on your tympanic membranes. Should be renamed Iceland Cacophony Orchestra.
Btw, displeasure is still a feeling, disgust is a feeling, being frazzled is a feeling. No matter positive or negative, sometimes the negative mood is definitely intentional. Sometimes the mood is a result of the composers mood, which they are both attempting to communicate and work through by producing such music which evokes the same reactions.

Emotions, moods, feelings, are complex, and can be reflected musically effectively.
commonsense
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Re: Computers Are Incapable Of Creatively Writing Music

Post by commonsense »

Dimebag wrote: Wed Mar 31, 2021 3:20 am
commonsense wrote: Tue Mar 30, 2021 11:38 pm BTW: if you think that music must be emotional or pleasing, just listen to the Iceland Symphony Orchestra playing anything. You can almost feel the eruption of a volcano on your tympanic membranes. Should be renamed Iceland Cacophony Orchestra.
Btw, displeasure is still a feeling, disgust is a feeling, being frazzled is a feeling. No matter positive or negative, sometimes the negative mood is definitely intentional. Sometimes the mood is a result of the composers mood, which they are both attempting to communicate and work through by producing such music which evokes the same reactions.

Emotions, moods, feelings, are complex, and can be reflected musically effectively.
Yes, I agree with everything you say here. To experience music means to react with emotions, moods, feelings (in typical or normal individuals).

An emotional reaction seems to be intrinsic to music, however the question remains: is it necessary to be able to sense emotions in order to inject emotions into something that is intrinsically emotional?
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Terrapin Station
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Re: Computers Are Incapable Of Creatively Writing Music

Post by Terrapin Station »

Dimebag wrote: Wed Mar 31, 2021 3:20 am Btw, displeasure is still a feeling, disgust is a feeling, being frazzled is a feeling. No matter positive or negative, sometimes the negative mood is definitely intentional. Sometimes the mood is a result of the composers mood, which they are both attempting to communicate and work through by producing such music which evokes the same reactions.
Again, almost no one actually does this, especially not if they have any experience with their music being consumed by large numbers of people.

Source: I've made my living as a musician, songwriter/composer and arranger for over 40 years and I've worked with some very famous people, some of the top-selling artists.
commonsense
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Re: Computers Are Incapable Of Creatively Writing Music

Post by commonsense »

There could be no emotionless humans who compose music, but that doesn’t guarantee that there cannot be an emotionless human who composes something that elicits emotions in listeners.

Emotions may not be necessary for composition of music. If there is any music that is created by a computer and enjoyed by a human, then having emotions is not necessary for the creation of music.

Earlier in this thread it was stated and was not refuted that there is computer generated music that evokes pleasurable responses in some humans.

On this basis it can be concluded that the ability to sense emotions is not necessary to write music. Accordingly, computers are not incapable of creatively writing music.
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Terrapin Station
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Re: Computers Are Incapable Of Creatively Writing Music

Post by Terrapin Station »

commonsense wrote: Wed Mar 31, 2021 3:07 pm There could be no emotionless humans who compose music, but that doesn’t guarantee that there cannot be an emotionless human who composes something that elicits emotions in listeners.

Emotions may not be necessary for composition of music. If there is any music that is created by a computer and enjoyed by a human, then having emotions is not necessary for the creation of music.

Earlier in this thread it was stated and was not refuted that there is computer generated music that evokes pleasurable responses in some humans.

On this basis it can be concluded that the ability to sense emotions is not necessary to write music. Accordingly, computers are not incapable of creatively writing music.
Right.

I'm not sure where all the twaddle about emotions and music comes from. And I think a lot of people don't really get the idea of uniquely aesthetic emotional responses to music. At any rate, very few songwriters/composers think about what they're doing in terms of "normal"/everyday emotions. The closest they usually get to that is during film scoring, say, we'll think, "I need some more or less stereotypically 'scary' or 'sentimental' or 'exciting/action-oriented' or whatever music here, because the director/producer wants something fairly stock."

But normally we think in far more abstract terms re uniquely aesthetic reactions, and we don't try to predict what others' aesthetic reactions (or interpretations, etc.) will be, because we know that's futile. If someone is oriented towards aesthetic reactions--and they don't have to be, they might just be doing something they think is interesting in terms of structures/forms/whatever--they're more often than not going to simply worry about their own aesthetic reactions. If you do something that moves yourself aesthetically, then as long as you're working within the normal range of the output for a given context (so your normal material, or the artist you're working for/with's normal material, or even just some niche you're shooting for on spec), it's going to appeal to some of that audience, whatever their interpretations of it.
commonsense
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Re: Computers Are Incapable Of Creatively Writing Music

Post by commonsense »

Terrapin Station wrote: Wed Mar 31, 2021 3:19 pm
commonsense wrote: Wed Mar 31, 2021 3:07 pm There could be no emotionless humans who compose music, but that doesn’t guarantee that there cannot be an emotionless human who composes something that elicits emotions in listeners.

Emotions may not be necessary for composition of music. If there is any music that is created by a computer and enjoyed by a human, then having emotions is not necessary for the creation of music.

Earlier in this thread it was stated and was not refuted that there is computer generated music that evokes pleasurable responses in some humans.

On this basis it can be concluded that the ability to sense emotions is not necessary to write music. Accordingly, computers are not incapable of creatively writing music.
Right.

I'm not sure where all the twaddle about emotions and music comes from. And I think a lot of people don't really get the idea of uniquely aesthetic emotional responses to music. At any rate, very few songwriters/composers think about what they're doing in terms of "normal"/everyday emotions. The closest they usually get to that is during film scoring, say, we'll think, "I need some more or less stereotypically 'scary' or 'sentimental' or 'exciting/action-oriented' or whatever music here, because the director/producer wants something fairly stock."

But normally we think in far more abstract terms re uniquely aesthetic reactions, and we don't try to predict what others' aesthetic reactions (or interpretations, etc.) will be, because we know that's futile. If someone is oriented towards aesthetic reactions--and they don't have to be, they might just be doing something they think is interesting in terms of structures/forms/whatever--they're more often than not going to simply worry about their own aesthetic reactions. If you do something that moves yourself aesthetically, then as long as you're working within the normal range of the output for a given context (so your normal material, or the artist you're working for/with's normal material, or even just some niche you're shooting for on spec), it's going to appeal to some of that audience, whatever their interpretations of it.
Yes, I am in agreement.
Dimebag
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Re: Computers Are Incapable Of Creatively Writing Music

Post by Dimebag »

commonsense wrote: Wed Mar 31, 2021 3:07 pm There could be no emotionless humans who compose music, but that doesn’t guarantee that there cannot be an emotionless human who composes something that elicits emotions in listeners.

Emotions may not be necessary for composition of music. If there is any music that is created by a computer and enjoyed by a human, then having emotions is not necessary for the creation of music.

Earlier in this thread it was stated and was not refuted that there is computer generated music that evokes pleasurable responses in some humans.

On this basis it can be concluded that the ability to sense emotions is not necessary to write music. Accordingly, computers are not incapable of creatively writing music.
Do you think the Computer could come up with such musical combinations without the assistance of large amounts of musical examples, put together by humans who do possess emotional capacity? I doubt it.
commonsense
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Re: Computers Are Incapable Of Creatively Writing Music

Post by commonsense »

I doubt it, too.

I’ve been arguing from the perspective that how the computer learns to compose music isn’t part of the OP.

Certainly a computer would be unable to compose music without some kind of input beforehand.

I wonder, though, if that input is a matter of playing examples, is turning on the switch to play a recording of humans human or machine input.

I lean toward human input.
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Re: Computers Are Incapable Of Creatively Writing Music

Post by Terrapin Station »

Can a human with alexithymia "creatively" compose music?

Sure. Why wouldn't they be able to?
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Re: Computers Are Incapable Of Creatively Writing Music

Post by SteveKlinko »

commonsense wrote: Thu Apr 01, 2021 1:33 pm I doubt it, too.

I’ve been arguing from the perspective that how the computer learns to compose music isn’t part of the OP.

Certainly a computer would be unable to compose music without some kind of input beforehand.

I wonder, though, if that input is a matter of playing examples, is turning on the switch to play a recording of humans human or machine input.

I lean toward human input.
The OP says: Computer Music is generated by Algorithms, Rules, and Random Note generators. When you talk about Computer Learning I assume you are talking about Neural Nets. That would come under the topic of Algorithms because Neural Nets are Configured using particular Algorithms designed for that.
commonsense
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Re: Computers Are Incapable Of Creatively Writing Music

Post by commonsense »

Who writes the algorithm that builds a neural net? A human? A computer programmed to write programs?

Ultimately, computers have a human source of their creation.

For that reason I believe that all sorts of machine learning begins in the human mind.

No matter, computers are capable of creatively writing music.
commonsense
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Re: Computers Are Incapable Of Creatively Writing Music

Post by commonsense »

SteveKlinko wrote: Thu Apr 01, 2021 2:46 pm
commonsense wrote: Thu Apr 01, 2021 1:33 pm I doubt it, too.

I’ve been arguing from the perspective that how the computer learns to compose music isn’t part of the OP.

Certainly a computer would be unable to compose music without some kind of input beforehand.

I wonder, though, if that input is a matter of playing examples, is turning on the switch to play a recording of humans human or machine input.

I lean toward human input.
The OP says: Computer Music is generated by Algorithms, Rules, and Random Note generators. When you talk about Computer Learning I assume you are talking about Neural Nets. That would come under the topic of Algorithms because Neural Nets are Configured using particular Algorithms designed for that.
As I re-read the thread now, I see that “creatively” is used by some to mean “artistically” and creating is distinguished from generating and also from producing. If I had recognized and accepted these connotations in place of a legitimate denotation, I certainly would have approached computer creativity differently. If only those who used the concept that way had noticed this earlier, they would’ve found this discussion to be less frustrating. I’m happy that I now understand those who have been affirming the OP.
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