Music and its soul{ful,less} origin

[Belial]

Something to think about...

How do you know when someone is "playing from the soul" without looking at them? Would you then be interpreting measurable attributes of the sound as "soul"? If the attributes are measurable, why can't a computer play with "soul", either by AI-based composition or human composition? What if you heard an album, pronounced it "soulful", then found out that it had no human involvement?

[Lilith]

I suppose that at some point a program could analyze and average the tendencies of those musicians whose music seems to errupt from deep within their beings. But I will always prefer to be able to experience the aura of the person from which the soul emanates whether that be visually, auditorally, just by the way they make my hair stand on end or give me gosebumps.

[PantyFanatic]

Originally posted by Lilith
.....But I will always prefer to be able to experience the aura of the person from ..... just by the way they make my hair stand on end or give me gosebumps. DAMN!:(

I have to agree with Lilith on this one. ;)
For me, it’s about the “feeling” I get and insomuch as we are still so inept at quantifying even the physical sensations (monitorable in a lab setting) of each individual, it’s going to be a while before AI will be able to combine emotions in a sorting query.















God! I hate these lucid moments.:jedi:

“Stephanie, where are you?”:eek:
(That’ll take care of any sanity trying to overtake me.) ;)

[cowgirltease]

Originally posted by Belial
Something to think about...

How do you know when someone is "playing from the soul" without looking at them? Would you then be interpreting measurable attributes of the sound as "soul"? If the attributes are measurable, why can't a computer play with "soul", either by AI-based composition or human composition? What if you heard an album, pronounced it "soulful", then found out that it had no human involvement?

I think you need to smoke a joint and it will all become very clear to you Darlin..;) :D

[Belial]

Originally posted by cowgirltease
I think you need to smoke a joint and it will all become very clear to you Darlin..;) :D
Maybe not a joint, I'd rather not risk the irritation to my vocal chords, but I've always wanted to try marijuana, so maybe some cookies would be worth trying ;)

Now, back on topic:

I understand what you're saying Lilith, but what I'm trying to get my head around is this: We can sample and then play back samples of music at such a rate that the sound is perceived as continuous to humans. If people hear soul, and a computer can store and retrieve samples of whatever sound it is instructed to, could a computer be programmed such that it can compose music that sounds soulful to a certain significant sample of people? Are people that complex and unique that their perception of soulful sound cannot be expressed algorithmically, keeping in mind the incredible power of computers to crunch numbers and analyse data?

[Lilith]

That is precisiely what I referred to. I believe some people are more perceptive to subtle musical nuances than others. Many would accept it but there would be a few whose internal or gut instincts would feel the difference.

[jseal]

Belial,

Permit me to rephrase the issue as being able to discriminate between mechanically and organically created music. If this remains useful, then your question becomes a variation of one which Alan Turing posed in 1950: “Can machines think?” http://www.abelard.org/turpap/turpap.htm

This depends upon where one places musical composition in the sweep of cognitive efforts.

Musical composition, while not bound by the same rules of logic as mathematics or the sciences, nevertheless requires a considerable amount of cognitive effort to bring about anything of interest. The pitches of the notes are selected with care – they are intended to be heard together and in relation to each other. The durations of the notes are also intentional, and depend upon the intent of the composer. The combination of these two components forms a third feature to a composition. This holds true (intentional or otherwise) throughout Occidental musical forms, up through Arnold Schönberg, but stops somewhere before John Gage, who is notable (notorious?) for his composition 4'33" (1952).

Now, just these three features of a score create a significant computational burden. Add multiple instruments and a dynamic range for each, add in the interrelationships between, say the vocal line (add here male or female voice, add accent) and the lead guitar. Besides being extremely difficult to programmatically describe, presenting the results in real time could stress out even a fast multiprocessing system. Not unthinkable, but a real challenge.

Now, yes, I will admit that this is a particular definition of or notion about music. There is an enormous range of “intentional sound organization” which can lay just claim to be music, with or without melody, beat, and with different tone scales – but the same criticisms hold.

On balance I’d say that AI and the hardware it runs on have a good way yet to go before computational music will be able to pass the Musical Turing Test.