WEBVTT - Will the Next Great Composer Be a PC? 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:07.320 Brought to you by Toyota. Let's go places. Welcome to 0:00:07.520 --> 0:00:14.520 Forward Thinking. Hey there, and welcome to Forward Thinking, the 0:00:14.520 --> 0:00:16.880 podcast that looks at the future and says I write 0:00:16.880 --> 0:00:19.680 the songs that make the whole world sing. I'm Jonathan Strickland, 0:00:19.680 --> 0:00:22.320 I'm Lauren bo and I'm Joe McCormick. And today we 0:00:22.360 --> 0:00:25.560 wanted to talk about musical composition. We talked about musical 0:00:25.600 --> 0:00:28.160 performance in a previous podcast, but now we're going to 0:00:28.240 --> 0:00:33.159 talk about actually writing music and composing it. And uh, 0:00:33.360 --> 0:00:35.680 you know, of course some of our most famous music 0:00:35.720 --> 0:00:41.519 creators are now decomposers. That's a pun. Lauren's just silently 0:00:41.560 --> 0:00:45.040 shaking her head. So the discussion I thought would be fun, 0:00:45.080 --> 0:00:47.800 you know you Joe came up with a great little 0:00:47.840 --> 0:00:54.960 point of of of research about the earliest known written 0:00:55.600 --> 0:00:59.680 musical notation, right, because of course we've been creating music, um, 0:00:59.720 --> 0:01:04.039 you know, even even singing or um you know, percussion 0:01:04.160 --> 0:01:08.320 on drums or rib cages or etcetera, for for for many, many, many, 0:01:08.319 --> 0:01:11.760 many many. But so yeah, we talked about in our 0:01:11.840 --> 0:01:14.920 last podcast, so we don't even know how old music is, right, 0:01:14.959 --> 0:01:17.360 We imagine we've been making it for you know, tens 0:01:17.360 --> 0:01:19.480 of thousands of years. We know it's at least about 0:01:19.520 --> 0:01:22.120 forty years old because that's how old the oldest bone 0:01:22.160 --> 0:01:25.240 flutes are. But when it comes to written music, I mean, 0:01:25.240 --> 0:01:27.880 obviously anything that's a written account, it's going to take 0:01:27.920 --> 0:01:30.840 a lot for it to be able to survive centuries 0:01:30.880 --> 0:01:33.920 and centuries. Yeah, we when you think about it, this 0:01:33.959 --> 0:01:36.960 is this is kind of strange and creepy. We don't 0:01:37.000 --> 0:01:39.679 know what that music sounded like. Yeah, we have no 0:01:39.720 --> 0:01:41.600 way of knowing. You could just try to guess, but 0:01:41.640 --> 0:01:43.920 you but there's no way to know. Those those vinyl 0:01:43.959 --> 0:01:46.880 albums are no longer on store shelves. Yeah, no, there's 0:01:46.880 --> 0:01:49.440 no there's no there's no way of recording it from 0:01:49.480 --> 0:01:51.280 you know, they didn't have any way of recording it 0:01:51.320 --> 0:01:54.080 back then, apart from writing things down. In the earliest 0:01:54.160 --> 0:01:57.400 version we have of that came from a city called Yogurt. 0:01:58.200 --> 0:02:01.760 It's in Syria. It was actually written on clay tablets 0:02:01.800 --> 0:02:06.240 and the Babylonians No No is the Hurrians um in 0:02:06.280 --> 0:02:10.040 fact that the Hurrians were an ancient people who spoke 0:02:10.400 --> 0:02:15.200 hero Eurytian. It was a language, and they were from 0:02:15.560 --> 0:02:20.519 what is now well what would eventually be northern messa potami, 0:02:21.520 --> 0:02:24.000 let's be fifty twos for you. But no, they were 0:02:24.040 --> 0:02:27.880 from that that area Mesopotamia, but now it's known as Syria, 0:02:28.960 --> 0:02:30.720 or at least that's where the clay tablets were found, 0:02:30.760 --> 0:02:35.440 these specific tablets, and the tablets had two sections to them, 0:02:35.800 --> 0:02:39.360 and the top section were lyrics, they were words that 0:02:39.520 --> 0:02:41.799 was that this was a song, not just a a 0:02:41.800 --> 0:02:43.960 piece of music, but a song, and the lower section 0:02:44.360 --> 0:02:47.800 was musical annotation. It was actually as if it were 0:02:48.440 --> 0:02:51.880 sheet music for us today. Of course, the problem is 0:02:51.919 --> 0:02:56.000 that we don't have any ancient Hurrians sitting around to 0:02:56.120 --> 0:02:59.840 tell us exactly what this musical note annotation meant. So 0:03:00.320 --> 0:03:05.079 it took some interpretation upon the part of scholars, particularly 0:03:05.160 --> 0:03:08.919 Dr Richard drumbrell Um. He'd spent a great deal of 0:03:09.000 --> 0:03:12.160 time trying to figure out exactly what this annotation meant. 0:03:12.600 --> 0:03:16.440 And the surviving tune is called Hurrying Him number six 0:03:16.880 --> 0:03:21.840 and it comes from about four b c E. Wow. Yeah, 0:03:21.960 --> 0:03:25.120 and uh, it's essentially a hymn to the moon God's 0:03:25.160 --> 0:03:27.880 wife Nicole. We should put up a link to this 0:03:28.000 --> 0:03:31.959 because I've heard some of these reproductions and obviously these 0:03:31.960 --> 0:03:35.520 are just interpretation, because again we don't know for sure 0:03:35.880 --> 0:03:40.240 if the Yeah, it's like it's like it has a 0:03:40.760 --> 0:03:43.400 like a series of sort of number symbols. I think 0:03:43.640 --> 0:03:46.320 that that we're just guessing, like, well, we think that 0:03:46.360 --> 0:03:51.680 means this series of notes within a mode or something. Yeah, exactly. 0:03:51.720 --> 0:03:54.440 We it's it's our best guests essentially. I mean, it's 0:03:54.440 --> 0:03:56.880 it's an educated guess, but it's still a guess. Yeah. 0:03:56.960 --> 0:04:01.160 And but but anyway, these interpretation sens of the notation 0:04:01.640 --> 0:04:04.400 are pretty haunting that they sound pretty cool to me. Yeah, 0:04:04.440 --> 0:04:06.960 I've got Well, we'll do a blog post that goes 0:04:07.000 --> 0:04:08.520 along with this one, just as we did with the 0:04:08.600 --> 0:04:11.760 last one, where we'll have some links to to some 0:04:12.080 --> 0:04:15.640 sound samples. Will also include the videos. There's a great 0:04:15.760 --> 0:04:19.040 video of a musician named Michael Levi who was playing 0:04:19.120 --> 0:04:23.279 on a solo liar uh and that his version is 0:04:24.160 --> 0:04:27.760 very haunting and beautiful. And then there was another one 0:04:27.800 --> 0:04:33.200 that we listened to by the musician Malek Gendali who 0:04:33.240 --> 0:04:35.919 is a pianist, but he performed also with the Ludwig 0:04:36.040 --> 0:04:39.760 Symphony Orchestra. And so you have a full orchestral version 0:04:39.839 --> 0:04:42.640 and a solo liar version. And it's interesting to listen 0:04:42.680 --> 0:04:46.040 to these two very different interpretations of the same set 0:04:46.040 --> 0:04:48.240 of music. Yeah, and then there are even much more 0:04:48.360 --> 0:04:51.760 different interpretations than that, sure that I saw. And it 0:04:51.800 --> 0:04:53.799 seems a lot of people have been taking a stab 0:04:53.839 --> 0:04:59.080 at what this sounded like. Terrific. Uh, yeah, it's really cool. 0:04:59.279 --> 0:05:00.919 I want to get in on this game, but I 0:05:01.000 --> 0:05:03.240 just don't know enough about music. Yeah, and same here. 0:05:03.320 --> 0:05:06.040 I I'm pretty sure that if I were to attempt 0:05:06.080 --> 0:05:08.520 the hurry and hymn number six on my ukulele, it 0:05:08.520 --> 0:05:13.160 would not sound anything like the the Hurrians would have imagined. Okay, 0:05:13.200 --> 0:05:17.039 but so that kind of thing we can't uh, we 0:05:17.080 --> 0:05:19.200 don't know exactly what it's supposed to sound like. But 0:05:19.200 --> 0:05:22.400 but eventually we did get some modes of musical notation 0:05:22.480 --> 0:05:26.360 that are comprehensible to us today that we're more standardized 0:05:26.400 --> 0:05:30.120 within their culture, and and that now we pretty much 0:05:30.240 --> 0:05:32.719 know how we're supposed to interpret right. Right, even if 0:05:32.760 --> 0:05:35.880 you are looking at an antiquated piece of music, we 0:05:35.960 --> 0:05:40.120 have enough information about what those those different scales of 0:05:40.240 --> 0:05:43.400 music and different keys, all that kind of information. We 0:05:43.440 --> 0:05:46.560 already know that. So even if it was written in 0:05:46.600 --> 0:05:49.680 a way that's antiquated, we can translate that into a 0:05:49.720 --> 0:05:52.880 more modern version. So that your typical musician would be 0:05:52.920 --> 0:05:57.480 able to yeah and again, you know, like just like 0:05:57.520 --> 0:06:01.200 we said in the musical performance, uh episode, A lot 0:06:01.240 --> 0:06:04.960 of this ends up being down to to musical expression 0:06:05.080 --> 0:06:07.680 as well. So even if something is written one way 0:06:07.760 --> 0:06:10.640 on the page, just as you would expect today, you 0:06:10.680 --> 0:06:13.159 get two different musicians to play the same piece of music, 0:06:13.160 --> 0:06:16.119 you're going to get two different experiences from that. Yeah, 0:06:16.240 --> 0:06:19.960 and so in the sort of the Western classical tradition, 0:06:20.000 --> 0:06:23.039 we have a very like notation based way of thinking 0:06:23.080 --> 0:06:27.160 about music. So you have you have a musical staff, 0:06:27.200 --> 0:06:29.000 you know, and you've written out the notes on it 0:06:29.040 --> 0:06:32.520 in the standard notation, and you know, yeah, and you 0:06:32.520 --> 0:06:35.120 you can read from that, and and that's how you 0:06:35.800 --> 0:06:38.280 deal with music. But I think there are tons of 0:06:38.400 --> 0:06:42.720 musicians these days who really never even deal with standard 0:06:43.400 --> 0:06:47.279 Western classical music notation. Now. They learn their instrument, They 0:06:47.520 --> 0:06:49.839 they learn what their instrument is capable, the sounds that 0:06:49.880 --> 0:06:52.440 the instrument makes. They know, you know, they may either 0:06:52.680 --> 0:06:57.240 have a a true understanding or maybe an intuitive understanding 0:06:57.360 --> 0:07:00.840 of the way that chord progress sians need to go, 0:07:01.040 --> 0:07:03.159 that sort of thing, the things that sound pleasing to 0:07:03.400 --> 0:07:06.560 that particular cultures ear well. Also, we don't need to, um, 0:07:06.600 --> 0:07:08.920 we don't need to write those things down in order 0:07:08.960 --> 0:07:12.120 to reproduce them later, because we can make audio records 0:07:12.200 --> 0:07:15.760 of that music. Exactly. Yeah. I feel like to some extent, 0:07:15.880 --> 0:07:21.400 the audio recording has eroded the place that was once 0:07:21.440 --> 0:07:25.560 held by by written music notation, because when you can 0:07:25.640 --> 0:07:29.400 record a song, it's not so imperative that you write 0:07:29.400 --> 0:07:32.119 it down. People can well, we can always go listen 0:07:32.200 --> 0:07:34.840 to it and then just reverse engineer how it was played. 0:07:35.160 --> 0:07:38.320 Sure yeah. And in fact, there are computer programs that 0:07:38.360 --> 0:07:41.240 can do that that are pretty interesting. Exactly So. I 0:07:41.280 --> 0:07:43.880 think a lot of people who compose music these days 0:07:45.240 --> 0:07:50.640 use something use electronically aided composition. Sure yeah. And I've 0:07:50.640 --> 0:07:53.280 actually got quite a few examples of that. One of 0:07:53.280 --> 0:07:58.160 the earliest ones that ultimately was not successful in the market, 0:07:58.200 --> 0:08:01.120 but I thought was interesting to talk about, came from 0:08:01.120 --> 0:08:03.240 a guy named Sid Meyer. Now, Joe, have you ever 0:08:03.240 --> 0:08:08.240 heard the name said Meyer? Everyone in Civilization has that 0:08:08.360 --> 0:08:09.800 is that is a little bit of a pun because 0:08:09.800 --> 0:08:13.880 Sid Meyer was the original creator and designer for for 0:08:14.000 --> 0:08:16.560 the Civilization series of video games that you guys might 0:08:16.560 --> 0:08:20.440 be familiar with. He also created an awesome game called Pirates. Anyway, yeah. 0:08:20.480 --> 0:08:23.000 So Sid Meier known as a video game designer. He 0:08:23.160 --> 0:08:26.960 had formed a company called micro Pros along with Bill 0:08:27.040 --> 0:08:30.960 Steely or Wild Bill Steele as he's known, and the 0:08:31.000 --> 0:08:35.200 two of them started making and selling video games, and 0:08:35.440 --> 0:08:39.400 h after he experienced some early success, Sidmyer decided he 0:08:39.400 --> 0:08:41.920 wanted to try something new. He didn't want to keep 0:08:42.040 --> 0:08:45.719 making military simulations, which was chiefly what Micropros was known 0:08:45.760 --> 0:08:47.960 for in those early days. He wanted to branch out 0:08:48.000 --> 0:08:50.240 do something different and uh, and he was a big 0:08:50.240 --> 0:08:53.160 fan of music. He um, I believe things in his 0:08:53.240 --> 0:08:57.200 church choir. Yep, yep. So he thought, why don't I 0:08:57.280 --> 0:09:00.800 create some software that allows people to create their own 0:09:00.840 --> 0:09:04.920 compositions in different styles. And that's when he went out 0:09:05.040 --> 0:09:09.000 and made a program called cpu box and actually watched 0:09:09.040 --> 0:09:12.240 a demonstration of this software and it was played on 0:09:12.480 --> 0:09:14.560 the three d O. Do you guys know where the 0:09:14.559 --> 0:09:17.120 three d O is? Yes? It sounds funny, Okay, So 0:09:17.280 --> 0:09:20.080 the three d O was a game console system is 0:09:20.120 --> 0:09:22.319 meant to be like a full entertainment system. It's a 0:09:22.360 --> 0:09:25.400 predecessor to the systems that we see today. Things like 0:09:25.480 --> 0:09:29.679 the Xbox and PlayStation models are really kind of the 0:09:29.720 --> 0:09:31.760 next step of what the three D O was supposed 0:09:31.760 --> 0:09:32.960 to be. But the problem was the three D O 0:09:33.000 --> 0:09:35.280 came out a little too early and way too expensive. 0:09:35.760 --> 0:09:40.000 This this was what was it the late eighties? Did 0:09:40.040 --> 0:09:42.440 the three D O have some of those interactive movies 0:09:42.559 --> 0:09:44.520 on it? Oh? Yeah, No. This was the same time 0:09:44.559 --> 0:09:47.440 that we started seeing full motion video get incorporated into 0:09:47.520 --> 0:09:49.600 video games. And the problem was that everyone was putting 0:09:49.600 --> 0:09:52.040 full motion video into video games without thinking about how 0:09:52.120 --> 0:09:54.160 to actually make it part of the game. So it 0:09:54.200 --> 0:09:56.320 became a real gimmick and you ended up getting these 0:09:56.400 --> 0:10:02.200 terribly acted shots a full motion video that just were 0:10:02.200 --> 0:10:05.160 not you know, it looked like lesslike the kind of 0:10:05.160 --> 0:10:07.000 stuff you would get on your television if you had 0:10:07.040 --> 0:10:09.840 really bad reception. It just was not a very satisfying 0:10:10.000 --> 0:10:13.560 was their full motion video in CPU Box? No? It 0:10:13.640 --> 0:10:17.319 was actually it was actually all graphics from what I 0:10:17.360 --> 0:10:18.920 could tell, or at least the stuff I saw was 0:10:18.960 --> 0:10:21.200 all graphics. So it wasn't. I was kidding, but but 0:10:21.320 --> 0:10:23.120 it could have been. It could have been because it 0:10:23.120 --> 0:10:24.839 was for the three D O. And so the way 0:10:24.840 --> 0:10:26.960 it worked was that you would be able to create 0:10:27.080 --> 0:10:32.679 music in various uh classical mode, so you could do 0:10:32.720 --> 0:10:35.600 a concerto, or you could even do a symphony if 0:10:35.600 --> 0:10:39.720 you wanted to, and you or chamber orchestra piece, and 0:10:39.760 --> 0:10:42.480 you would sit down and you would start to compose 0:10:42.520 --> 0:10:45.240 this stuff through this interface, and then at the end 0:10:45.240 --> 0:10:47.520 of it it would have a full piece of music. 0:10:47.920 --> 0:10:51.120 But it did not sell very well. Very few people 0:10:51.200 --> 0:10:52.880 really picked it up. I don't think the market was 0:10:52.960 --> 0:10:55.160 quite ready for it at the time that it came out, 0:10:55.520 --> 0:10:58.760 so ultimately this was not a success. But there are 0:10:58.920 --> 0:11:05.000 plenty of programs out there that have various UH features 0:11:05.000 --> 0:11:08.320 that are great for musicians, like UM here's an example 0:11:08.440 --> 0:11:13.240 of one. There's one called the Finale Songwriter. Finale Songwriter 0:11:13.280 --> 0:11:16.920 allows you to create musical notations, you know, so you 0:11:16.960 --> 0:11:19.360 can get that cheap music you want if you want 0:11:19.360 --> 0:11:23.079 to have it written down. UH. You could play a 0:11:23.280 --> 0:11:26.360 song on a MIDI device, so any device that is 0:11:26.440 --> 0:11:29.880 MIDI compatible. MIDI is a set of standards for music 0:11:29.960 --> 0:11:32.679 for for computer music. If you were to have, say 0:11:32.840 --> 0:11:35.160 a keyboard that's a MIDI keyboard, and you have it 0:11:35.160 --> 0:11:37.840 plugged into your computer and you play the song exactly 0:11:37.840 --> 0:11:41.319 the way you want it, this program can then translate 0:11:41.400 --> 0:11:44.240 that into musical notations, so you can actually print that 0:11:44.280 --> 0:11:46.240 out and hand that to someone else and say here's 0:11:46.280 --> 0:11:49.960 the song I wrote. Now you can play it too. Um. 0:11:50.000 --> 0:11:53.200 You could also if you wanted to program the song 0:11:53.280 --> 0:11:56.800 note by note as instead of playing something dynamically and 0:11:56.840 --> 0:12:02.080 have it be recorded and transformed, you could very systematically 0:12:02.160 --> 0:12:04.760 go through and say I want this this particular note 0:12:04.760 --> 0:12:08.240 at this pitch, at this tempo and for this length, 0:12:08.280 --> 0:12:10.360 and go. You could build it like you could build 0:12:10.360 --> 0:12:12.680 a computer algorithm. If you wanted to do that, you could. 0:12:12.679 --> 0:12:15.960 You could essentially be data from star Trek. That's interesting 0:12:16.000 --> 0:12:19.439 to me, I mean because with that kind of capability, 0:12:19.559 --> 0:12:24.000 you sort of expand what the uh what the average 0:12:24.040 --> 0:12:26.760 person can do, especially like say, if you're not the 0:12:26.760 --> 0:12:30.720 greatest performer, Like what what if you want to write 0:12:30.800 --> 0:12:34.240 music but you don't have really good rhythm yourself, or 0:12:34.559 --> 0:12:37.040 if you're incapable of hitting a note on a particular 0:12:37.080 --> 0:12:40.400 instrument right or yeah, or you just have some form 0:12:40.440 --> 0:12:43.080 of impairment that would you know, maybe you aren't, maybe 0:12:43.080 --> 0:12:44.960 you don't have the full use of both of your hands, 0:12:45.040 --> 0:12:48.920 but you have a very musically tuned mind. You can 0:12:49.320 --> 0:12:52.040 think of the music you want to play, and if 0:12:52.040 --> 0:12:54.760 you had that capability, you could play it, but perhaps 0:12:54.800 --> 0:12:56.560 you've lost it, or perhaps you never had in the 0:12:56.600 --> 0:12:59.120 first place. This gives you that freedom of creating that 0:12:59.160 --> 0:13:01.920 piece of music. It's kind of like thinking about how 0:13:02.040 --> 0:13:05.120 Beethoven was able to create incredible symphonies even as his 0:13:05.200 --> 0:13:08.000 hearing was going away. It's that you know, you never know, 0:13:08.080 --> 0:13:10.960 there may be the next Beethoven who is incapable of 0:13:10.960 --> 0:13:13.840 playing a musical instrument. But the one other reasons I 0:13:13.840 --> 0:13:16.319 bring up Beethoven is to talk about the third piece 0:13:16.320 --> 0:13:17.880 of software. And keep in mind, like I said, there 0:13:17.880 --> 0:13:20.520 are lots of different examples. I just picked three kind 0:13:20.520 --> 0:13:25.040 of uh. This piece of software is called Ludwig, and 0:13:25.320 --> 0:13:28.960 Ludvig is music software. It's specifically for the Windows platform, 0:13:29.040 --> 0:13:31.959 and again there are different ones for for Max as well, 0:13:32.320 --> 0:13:34.480 but lets you create music. So what you do is 0:13:34.520 --> 0:13:38.520 you you insert a melody into this software, so you 0:13:38.520 --> 0:13:41.280 have to create the melody. But once you insert the melody, 0:13:41.320 --> 0:13:43.559 it starts to fill out the rest of the song 0:13:43.679 --> 0:13:46.280 with chords and other elements to make it a full 0:13:46.320 --> 0:13:49.120 song and not just a melody. And it does this 0:13:49.200 --> 0:13:52.040 by following specific rules for specific genres. So you pick 0:13:52.120 --> 0:13:54.960 the genre you want and then it will fill that 0:13:55.000 --> 0:13:57.400 out and put it to the right tempo for that 0:13:57.520 --> 0:14:02.480 genre with the right sound in the background. Um, it's interesting. 0:14:02.520 --> 0:14:05.240 I would say that it it comes out sounding very 0:14:05.320 --> 0:14:07.720 much like MIDI music. So in other words, it's not 0:14:07.760 --> 0:14:12.120 sounding like a big, rich, you know, diverse set of instruments, 0:14:12.160 --> 0:14:13.920 but something a little bit fancier than what you would 0:14:13.920 --> 0:14:16.760 get on say, electric organ the way that like my 0:14:16.800 --> 0:14:18.640 grandparents had in their house that you could just put 0:14:18.679 --> 0:14:22.280 like Ragtime Beach number two in the background of Yeah, 0:14:22.320 --> 0:14:27.120 so the the you know, it's it's interesting because what 0:14:27.160 --> 0:14:32.120 they'd ended up doing was they pulled in some sheet music. Again. Um, 0:14:32.200 --> 0:14:34.640 in this case, they pulled out any a piece of 0:14:34.720 --> 0:14:37.520 music that was in public domain, find the video I watched, 0:14:38.120 --> 0:14:41.680 and then applied different h musical genres to it. So 0:14:41.720 --> 0:14:44.320 they could play like two different styles of music with 0:14:44.440 --> 0:14:48.040 the same set of notes, the same melody. And that 0:14:48.120 --> 0:14:50.080 was kind of interesting to hear what it how it 0:14:50.120 --> 0:14:54.920 came out. So we're starting to see computer assisted composition here, 0:14:54.960 --> 0:14:58.480 not just assisted in that it's giving you some tools 0:14:58.520 --> 0:15:01.320 to work with, but assisted that it's actually sort of 0:15:01.440 --> 0:15:06.120 helping generated for content. Yeah. So I mean, and this 0:15:06.200 --> 0:15:08.280 kind of thing goes back to I I know that 0:15:08.280 --> 0:15:11.200 one of Ray kurtz Wild's first projects was I mean 0:15:11.240 --> 0:15:13.200 when he was like a teenager. This is probably about 0:15:13.240 --> 0:15:15.520 in N five I believe it was, was a piece 0:15:15.520 --> 0:15:20.520 of software that would analyze classical compositions and um and 0:15:20.560 --> 0:15:24.160 compose its own based on those rules. There's those algorithms 0:15:24.160 --> 0:15:26.160 that are first well, of course well known for his 0:15:26.280 --> 0:15:30.560 work and artificial intelligence voice recognition. Also a well known futurist, 0:15:31.720 --> 0:15:34.840 aspiring cyborg. He's waiting for that singularity to hit us 0:15:34.840 --> 0:15:39.240 any day now y forty years. But yeah, so that's 0:15:39.280 --> 0:15:40.840 one of the things he was known for, was this 0:15:40.880 --> 0:15:44.520 early computer program that could compose its own music. Well, 0:15:44.640 --> 0:15:48.280 that leads me to a really interesting idea, um, and 0:15:48.320 --> 0:15:50.400 it's something I touched on in the script I wrote 0:15:50.400 --> 0:15:57.560 about this episode. Um, but the idea of algorithmic composition. Okay, 0:15:57.600 --> 0:15:59.960 so we already know this is possible, that we can 0:16:00.320 --> 0:16:04.640 get computers to write viable music themselves. And actually we 0:16:04.720 --> 0:16:07.600 already talked about in another podcast the idea of say 0:16:07.680 --> 0:16:12.320 Ai storytelling. But that's actually a lot more difficult, right 0:16:12.360 --> 0:16:15.320 because the rules of human language are are such that 0:16:15.360 --> 0:16:20.400 they're really really complicated and kind of squeege you need 0:16:20.560 --> 0:16:24.000 millions of rules in order to create a coherent story 0:16:24.040 --> 0:16:26.600 out of nothing, unless you were just using like some 0:16:26.640 --> 0:16:32.040 pre built skeleton or whatever um mad libs. But to 0:16:32.240 --> 0:16:35.080 create a piece of music, that's actually a lot easier 0:16:35.080 --> 0:16:41.000 because music already is it's very susceptible to data. It's 0:16:41.040 --> 0:16:43.400 it's pretty mathematical when you break it down to its 0:16:43.400 --> 0:16:48.400 bare bones. Yeah, and it's easier to tell a computer 0:16:48.520 --> 0:16:51.320 what the rules of music are than say, what the 0:16:51.400 --> 0:16:55.840 rules of storytelling and language are. And so I can 0:16:56.080 --> 0:16:58.920 very much see, even more so than the AI storyteller. 0:16:59.120 --> 0:17:04.200 We discussed the possibility of an AI musical composer. Okay, 0:17:04.240 --> 0:17:08.920 So imagine you've got a music service like Pandora. Okay, okay, 0:17:08.960 --> 0:17:12.240 and Pandora what does it do to give you the 0:17:12.320 --> 0:17:15.200 songs that you want to hear? It follows the music 0:17:15.280 --> 0:17:18.359 genome projects, So in other words, you tell Pandora what 0:17:18.560 --> 0:17:20.720 kind of song or what kind of band you are 0:17:20.760 --> 0:17:24.159 interested in. It starts to look for other bands or 0:17:24.160 --> 0:17:27.639 other songs that share those same sort of qualities, and 0:17:27.640 --> 0:17:29.400 then it serves those up to you. Yeah, what does 0:17:29.440 --> 0:17:31.840 it do? So you tell it, say, you know, I 0:17:31.920 --> 0:17:36.000 really like a song by Meat Loaf? Alright, So Paradise 0:17:36.040 --> 0:17:38.400 by the Dashboard Life? Yeah, I really that's the song 0:17:38.480 --> 0:17:40.399 I give it? So does how does it know what 0:17:40.480 --> 0:17:42.640 I like? Well? Does it just give me other songs 0:17:42.720 --> 0:17:46.239 by meat Loaf? No? No, let's say, does it just 0:17:46.280 --> 0:17:48.880 give me other songs that are filed under the same 0:17:49.040 --> 0:17:52.919 genre category as meat Loaf? No? No? Well what does 0:17:52.960 --> 0:17:54.879 it just give me songs that are on the same 0:17:55.000 --> 0:17:57.679 label that that album was on? No? Joe, would you 0:17:57.680 --> 0:17:59.320 like me to tell you what it gives you? Yeah? 0:17:59.400 --> 0:18:02.640 How does it figure out what songs go with Paradise 0:18:02.680 --> 0:18:04.399 by the Dashboard? Like? It's really cool because what they 0:18:04.440 --> 0:18:06.760 do is they they have people listening to songs and 0:18:06.800 --> 0:18:10.000 they start to classify all the different elements that go 0:18:10.080 --> 0:18:12.480 into making that song. So it's kind of the meta 0:18:12.600 --> 0:18:16.119 data for an individual song. So in the musical feature, 0:18:16.560 --> 0:18:20.000 the musical features everything from is it a single vocalist? 0:18:20.160 --> 0:18:22.159 Is it a duet? In case of Paradise by the 0:18:22.200 --> 0:18:26.120 Dashboard Light? Yes it is? Uh? Is it um you know? 0:18:26.400 --> 0:18:29.520 Is it a ballad? Is it rock and roll? It 0:18:29.560 --> 0:18:32.560 doesn't have a lot of electric guitar? And it does. 0:18:33.560 --> 0:18:36.239 There's there there are all these different elements that go 0:18:36.320 --> 0:18:39.400 into it, and so a single song may have forty 0:18:39.520 --> 0:18:43.520 or fifty or more different specific features that have been 0:18:43.600 --> 0:18:47.600 singled out, and so then it starts to look for 0:18:47.680 --> 0:18:51.320 other songs that contain a certain number of those tags, 0:18:51.440 --> 0:18:53.640 and then it serves that song up to you. Then 0:18:53.680 --> 0:18:56.280 you have the option of either hitting the thumbs up, 0:18:56.320 --> 0:18:58.280 I love this song and make sure you play this 0:18:58.320 --> 0:19:00.919 kind of stuff more frequently, or thumbs down, this is 0:19:00.920 --> 0:19:03.560 not what I'm looking for. And as you give input 0:19:03.640 --> 0:19:06.359 back into the program, it starts to refine that algorithm. 0:19:06.359 --> 0:19:09.280 Maybe it starts to think that, Okay, this guy really 0:19:09.320 --> 0:19:12.840 likes cheesy songs, but every single solo artist I've ever 0:19:12.920 --> 0:19:15.560 given him he has thumbs down. So we are not 0:19:15.600 --> 0:19:17.280 going to do any more solo from now on. It's 0:19:17.280 --> 0:19:20.239 all going to be duets or bands or whatever. And 0:19:20.280 --> 0:19:24.280 then it'll start to refine your channel over time. Okay, 0:19:24.359 --> 0:19:27.560 so imagine a program like this. It starts to get 0:19:27.600 --> 0:19:31.560 a really specific musical taste profile on you. It tells 0:19:31.720 --> 0:19:33.960 you know, it figures out, and let's imagine that it's 0:19:33.960 --> 0:19:37.480 even more advanced than pandoras today. Like it, it gets 0:19:37.480 --> 0:19:41.320 a really specific profile you, like these fifty features in 0:19:41.320 --> 0:19:44.879 in songs UM. Right, Now, what it has to do 0:19:44.960 --> 0:19:47.520 is try to go through its whole library and match 0:19:47.720 --> 0:19:50.399 songs that have as many of the features you like 0:19:50.560 --> 0:19:53.879 and as few of the features you dislike as possible. Sure, 0:19:54.560 --> 0:19:59.840 but using um algorithmic composition, we could imagine that it 0:20:00.000 --> 0:20:04.119 and technically create songs that have exactly what you want. 0:20:04.320 --> 0:20:07.160 So let's just kind of creepy. So if you if 0:20:07.200 --> 0:20:10.480 you really love Paradise by the Dashboard Light and you 0:20:10.520 --> 0:20:12.880 love all the things that go into making that song 0:20:12.960 --> 0:20:14.600 what it is, but you can't just listen to the 0:20:14.640 --> 0:20:19.400 one song you three times and that takes up half 0:20:19.400 --> 0:20:22.040 a day. The song is long, it's like a twelve 0:20:22.080 --> 0:20:26.080 minute long song. But yeah, no, yeah, it could. In theory, 0:20:26.440 --> 0:20:28.480 let's say it's following those rules, it could start to 0:20:28.520 --> 0:20:33.159 produce other songs that match the same sort of criteria dynamically. 0:20:33.240 --> 0:20:35.840 So this is you're literally hearing this song for the 0:20:35.840 --> 0:20:38.360 first time. In fact, you're the first person to hear 0:20:38.359 --> 0:20:40.320 this song for the first time, and maybe no one 0:20:40.400 --> 0:20:43.400 ever hears that song again because it's making it specifically 0:20:43.440 --> 0:20:46.280 to match what you want to hear at that moment. Now, 0:20:46.440 --> 0:20:51.359 we already have algorithmic composition, and we already have UM 0:20:51.400 --> 0:20:54.880 things like Pandora that can create a really intense taste 0:20:54.880 --> 0:20:58.760 profile for the listener. So why don't we already have this? Well, 0:20:58.840 --> 0:21:01.760 I'd say one thing that standing in the way is 0:21:01.840 --> 0:21:05.720 that UM algorithmic composition, while it's really good, probably isn't 0:21:05.920 --> 0:21:09.119 quite there yet in terms of its precision. And also, 0:21:09.520 --> 0:21:12.679 I'd say the biggest impediment right now is just the 0:21:12.680 --> 0:21:16.200 fact that the computer generated sounds aren't as pleasing to 0:21:16.320 --> 0:21:20.719 people as like actually recorded instruments and voices are in 0:21:20.760 --> 0:21:25.399 most cases. Would would you agree? Yeah, No, I completely agree. 0:21:25.600 --> 0:21:29.359 Though I wonder if as time goes on and we 0:21:29.440 --> 0:21:34.399 get better and better at creating synthesized UM, you know, 0:21:34.480 --> 0:21:39.639 instrument sounds that are almost indistinguishable from real recorded instrument sounds, 0:21:39.680 --> 0:21:42.760 if this will become more and more of a possibility. Sure. 0:21:43.000 --> 0:21:45.080 This discussion always reminds me of that one episode of 0:21:45.119 --> 0:21:49.160 Next Generation where where Data was playing a violent concert 0:21:49.520 --> 0:21:51.840 and UM, and that one doctor who wasn't Crusher, who 0:21:51.880 --> 0:21:53.959 was really mean to him all the time, really got 0:21:54.040 --> 0:21:55.480 on his case about it. She was like, yeah, you 0:21:55.480 --> 0:21:58.560 were technically perfect, but there was no emotion in the music. 0:21:58.600 --> 0:22:00.520 And whether or not whether or not a motion, whether 0:22:00.600 --> 0:22:03.880 or not flaws in the playing of music are are 0:22:04.160 --> 0:22:07.119 somehow critical to the human experience of that kind of sound. 0:22:07.480 --> 0:22:09.600