Computer Composers

In my previous post, I gave a quick overview of how artificial intelligence is used by computer programs to compose music and how this practice has evolved over time ever since it started. For this post, I would like to discuss some of the programs and computers that have been more successful both in terms of composing music and gaining popularity, so much that they have already released full albums with their original compositions and their music has been performed by famous orchestras such as the London Symphony Orchestra.

The first computer that I will get into is the Iamus computer. 'Iamus is a computer composer specialized in contemporary classical music' (1). It was created by Prof. Francisco Vico and a group of programmers at the University of Malaga in Spain and it is considered the first computer to be able to compose full works of professional quality in its own style of contemporary classical music without human intervention and without trying to emulate the style of other composers. The Iamus tries to imitate a human way of composing music by using Melomics, which is a style of computer composition which 'provides the system with knowledge about music composition, which allows them to create their own styles' (1). I will get into different AI techniques used for music composition in my next post.

Some of the work done by the Iamus computer has been put together to release its debut album 'Iamus', which has was performed by the London Symphony Orchestra, as was previously mentioned. Here is Iamus's first full composition titled "Hello World!".

After listening to "Hello World!" you are probably thinking that that is definitely not the type of music that we are used to. Even if you are familiar with classical music, you may be thinking that the rhythm of the song is very unusual and difficult to follow, which is the case with most of the music composed by AI that I've heard.

Another computer program that has enjoyed great success is the Emily Howell, which is a computer program created by Prof. David Cope at the University of California, Santa Cruz. The way Emily Howell composes music is that it takes its input from a database  of different styles of music and composes new music in its own style. But it all started with its predecessor, the EMI (Experiments in Musical Intelligence), which was able to compose music by feeding it the works of a specific composer and it was then able to compose a new piece of music very similar to the style of the input. The EMI was successful in achieving this, but throughout its lifespan, it was always surrounded by controversy; musicians never really embraced it due to the fact that 'the creation of music is innately human, and this computer program was a threat in some way to that unique human aspect of creation' (2), and thus the EMI never enjoyed much success. From the EMI, Emily Howell was created. What Emily Howell does different from the EMI is that instead of trying to emulate a specific composer's composition style, it takes its input from different styles and attempts to create a new piece of music with its own original style. Emily's creator thinks that this should create even more controversy than the EMI since Emily Howell could be considered a new composer and not just another computer program that tries to imitate an existing composer and thus seen as competition by other composers.

The Emily Howell, just like the Iamus, has released its own albums through Centaur Records with its own original compositions. The video below is one of its original compositions.

After listening to that, I believe that most of us can agree that it is easier to follow and enjoy than the music created by Iamus, specially if you are like me and you are not an experienced musician who has been exposed to many different types of classical music.

The fact is that it is certainly impressive what these two creations have been able to achieve. I personally hope that society and specially musicians will become more open minded on this issue. As these programs continue to evolve, I hope that we can witness better and improved music from computers because the bottom line is that the purpose of music is to give the listener something that they can enjoy listening to.

References

(1) Sánchez C, Moreno F, Albarracín D, Fernández JD, Vico F. Melomics: A Case-Study of AI in Spain; 2013

(2) Jacqui Cheng. Virtual composer makes beautiful music—and stirs controversy.
http://arstechnica.com/science/2009/09/virtual-composer-makes-beautiful-musicand-stirs-controversy/

An Overview of Artificial Intelligence in Music

Over the years, computers have been increasing their role and involvement in the music industry and the different genres of music. Technology advances at a rapid pace and consequently, computers and their software become more and more advanced and are capable of doing a greater number of things and more efficiently. It is the same when we talk about artificial intelligence. Most of us have seen the amazing and human-like things that very advanced robots and computer software are capable of  nowadays; we have from waiter robots, to robots that can play football, to computer programs that can hold a conversation with you. Artificial intelligence is at the center of the reason why these robots and these programs act the way they do.

In music, throughout history we have been able to see different genres and how the way music is composed varies by different periods in time and by geographical regions. In the 20^th century however, we have seen an enormous variety in genres and how music is composed and when we threw computers and artificial intelligence into the mix, it allowed us to explore and come up with even more genres and ways of composing music which otherwise would not have been possible without them. In my future posts, I will be talking both about music composed in part by humans and in part by computers, but I will also be talking about music which is composed entirely by a computer. I would also like to get into the different artificial intelligence techniques that can be used by computer programs to compose music.

Of course, when talking about a type of art and in this case music, there is always the debate of whether or not what is being produced can be considered actual art. I believe few people would argue that music is not art, but when we talk about music that is being composed by a piece of software, there may be more people who may not consider it art anymore. For some, it may be that after listening to a piece of music composed by a program, they may feel as though what is being produced is not good music, or it is not creative. For others, for example a composer who has been studying and practicing music all his life, the idea of a computer program doing his job in a much shorter amount of time may be a tough pill to swallow.

But how can we determine if something is art or if something is creative? What do we take into consideration when deciding whether or not something is creative? Some argue that 'the underlying process must be creative in order for the system to be judged creative' (2). Others feel that 'the output of a system should be the sole determinant of creativity'. Perhaps it all comes down to a matter of opinion.

Whatever your opinion is on this matter, the reality is that a lot of time and effort is put into making these programs. They need to in a way, teach the computer how to compose music. There are four unique problems that need to be addressed when “teaching” and making a computer compose music:

1. 'How will music be measured to provide input information to the computer system?' (1)
2. 'How will that information be presented to the computer?' (1)
3. How will it be represented in the computer program so the computer can understand it? (1)
4. 'What will the computer do with this knowledge?' (1)

A lot of time and thought is put into the making of these computer programs, and we can only expect them to get better with time. There are already albums that contain music composed entirely by computers, and some of this music has already been performed live by orchestras, so I believe it is safe to assume that this type of music is just going to get more popular over time.

References

(1) Chris Dobrian, Music and Artificial Intelligence. 1993

(2) Evan X. Merz, Creativity in Algorithmic music. 2013