[tsa]

I read a piece on Slashdot about a Ph.D. student named Øyvind Brandtsegg who is working on a computer program that composes music. Although the title on Slashdot contains the word 'Jazz', Brandtsegg never talks about music styles on his site. You can find examples of the music here. Since there are quite a few musicians amongst you I thought I'd share this with you. I wonder what you think! I'll keep my personal opinion to myself for a while to not bias you.

[MoriartyL]

You're overselling it, and I don't know whether that's a matter of just not understanding what it is, or enthusiasm. It's just a particular way of modifying sound which can be done on the fly, not a robotic composer. I think I would enjoy improvising alongside someone playing this program, but there's still lots of work to be done if something like this will be useful in performing for other people. So far it seems to get the sound of the instrument, but not much of what the player (of the conventional instrument) is putting in. That makes it an overpowering instrument- the mood of the overall improvisation is almost entirely set by the user of this program, with the other player just being a jumping-off point. Which is not a bad thing inherently, just limiting. It could be nice if used in moderation within larger pieces.

Interesting work.

[tsa]

Originally Posted by MoriartyL

You're overselling it, and I don't know whether that's a matter of just not understanding what it is, or enthusiasm.

It's a matter of not understanding it I think. The Slashdot head line is: A Computer Composing and Playing Jazz. I really thought the computer had composed the music on the guy's website.

[MoriartyL]

I don't understand the specifics exactly, but it seems that this computer program is used by a musician to take audio samples from other instruments, and output modified audio. The music on the website has two people- one is a regular musician who is improvising or playing composed music on a conventional instrument, and the other is recording the sound and changing settings on the program so that it outputs the modified audio. So you get a live duet of sorts between a person and his digitally modified "echo", which is a unique way of improvising.