Oswald Spengler, nearly a century ago, wrote his "Der Untergangs des Abendlandes". Although I do not agree with every aspect of his controversial (very often exploited) personality and thinking, I must admit he saw what was unknown to (and unthinkable for) the majority.

The Italian title: "Il tramonto dell'Occidente" sounds more direct, something like "Dusk of the Western world".

I reckon technology gives you less than what it takes away from you. A mobile telephone could be a "loneliness instrument". By the same token, these one finger compositions, for a few bucks, can heal the frustration of the most, until next inability and helplessness.

Surrounded by miserable music and poorly talented so-called composers, we are sometimes forced to regret the past. Ergo, its music.

@Errikos said:

Another stellar product

Errikos,

I take it, you love this new program?  [;)]

What's crazy about it all is that we as a society (and I say we lightly) are conditioned by the media as to what we should like.  Top Ten music created with loops has become the norm for the most part and the record companies exploit it as the new standard.  Apple, inc. for example tells us what we need to have (i.e. iPhone, iPad, etc.) in order to be efficient and cool.

I still strongly believe there will continue to be individuals that do care and can tell the difference between a loop created piece versus one that is not...  It would be a shame for symphonic music to start all sounding alike.......

If only the library consisted of 5,686,379,318,465,074 orchestral variations of Cage's 4'33".

Where things are going are very sad.  The overall trend also reminds me of the book Lord of the Flies.

@noldar12 said:

If only the library consisted of 5,686,379,318,465,074 orchestral variations of Cage's 4'33".

Where things are going are very sad.  The overall trend also reminds me of the book Lord of the Flies.

Excellent point! And true.

Just to seem a bit optimistic about it ( but I'm not) and slightly "witty", I'd say "Lord of the Files"...

http://store.samplephonics.com/products/vintage-filmscapes

The sister product, just in case you thought this was an isolated dreaded incident.

I had predicted all this (I wish it hadn't come true so soon, or at all), when I breathed fire over products like Cinescamples, Cine Orch, Orkestral Licentials and the like. Back then, less perspicacious forum members were dismissive of me, saying that the materials offered by such companies were too generic (they weren't), and that nobody that couldn't write music by themselves would be able to use such software to complete a musical work (they did). In vain did I try to explain that this was only the beginning and that soon there would be products that would more or less offer loops/segments like completed tracks from a music library, and that the orks would simply have to click their mice twice to put their ork names on a complete, copyrightable "musical" work... Now this day isn't upon us yet, but these new offerings are indicative of how close to that day we have come.

And is it a coincidence that the original was my 666th post?! Well spotted Goran.

@Chuck: How can anybody not adore such products, infering that music composition is really anyone's and everyone's province! Like mathematics, or philosophy...

@noldar12: Did you know that Cage wrote a 'sequel' work to 4'33"? He called it 0'0". I feel that's even closer to the mark... And yes, I agree, this kind of infantilistic music does attract flies...

@Miki: Oswald was right about many things...

Errikos, normally in RL I can be something of a punster, but actually did not think of that implication in terms of the library and flies.  To risk stating the obvious: I was thinking in terms of what happened in that story and how the young "civilized" boys devolved over the weeks after being shipwrecked on the island.

As for Lord of the Files: [:D]

And, sadly, I don't think we've even started to see where it will end up going.  In terms of culture in general, I would maintain that we are steadly getting less creative and overall rapidly losing abilities (see parallel in Rome circa 250-350 C.E.).

The key is to seek to be exceptions to the trend, regardless (and there are exceptions, like the VSL team).

About "Lord of the Files", I wasn't being funny, obviously. It was a silly joke, just to dull my melancholy.

To me, Golding's book is one of the best novels of last century, with very deep psychological and "futuristic" implications. Even the 1963 Peter Brook's movie is a marvellous example of "little robbery to literature" (remember Raymond Leppard's little "Kirye eleison"?).

Quite a few years ago, I started (very modestly, obviously) denouncing the loss and degeneration of intelligence and capabilities (and consequent decline) of the human race. People couldn't stand me!

Nowadays literature is Harry Potter, vampires, codexes and hells of all sorts. Batman is THE CINEMA, hz THE COMPOSER, the smart phone A MUST...et cetera, et cetera...ad libitum.

In this mayhem, we forget to live, to think, to create something new and positive (if this is in our possibilities).

I'm sure that within a century, even our hands will mutate their "posture", maybe shape, with thumbs more active and bigger than ever (read: because of composing messages on the mobile phone...). In a few centuries, if humans will still be there, maybe there will be no more need for literature or music as we know them at their best. Borges, Dante and Shakespeare will be forgotten...

I might appear extremely pessimistic, maybe I am it, but all this appears to be the inclination of things.

I'm pretty sure the 'i' on all products already in existence (iLife, iPhone, iPod, iPad, iMac - I own a few of those last ones), as well as on future products (iCompose, iSuck, iEtc.), stands for 'iDiot'. 

A friend of mine was half-joking recently when he posited that when you flirt with a woman these days and the time comes to exchange numbers, you'd better spring a "smart" phone out of your pocket, or the game might just be up. How sad if it's already true in some cases already...

@Errikos said:

@Chuck: How can anybody not adore such products, infering that music composition is really anyone's and everyone's province! Like mathematics, or philosophy...

I think back in the day when I worked in the automotive industry and was so amazed at the first robot that was brought into the plant.  I was so for it, technology everywhere I thought -- a good thing.  As time went on, the robots were actually performing the work flawless, much better than any human.  Very repeatable and higher quality....  Then the jobs opportunities began to reduce.  Good for the company, bad for people who need to be employed and support their famlies.  I was fortuniate that I continued education and stayed ahead of the threat but so many did not.

Will there come a day that software will replace the human composer?  Better quality?  I hope not but never say never........

@Chuck: The stoolwares softwares I've been condemning, all offer the charlatans segments/tracks very much composed by humans, not robots. However, what you are talking about has long been attempted, with questionable results. I am somewhat familiar with the efforts of David Cope (of New Directions in Music fame), using LISP as programming language to write algorithms "enabling" a computer to write a short piece, say in the style of Mozart. It's been a very long time since I've checked progress of this process, so I don't know how far they've progressed - I don't expect much, for I think we would have heard about it. So the day you're describing is not looming as yet.

@Brian: Of course the truly creative tasks will be a few select humans' province as they've always been, unless very different kind of technology emerges. So far the heuristic systems have left a great deal to be desired... I would say though, don't extend your welcome to the charlatans using this stuff, so magnanimously; the real problem is not with them as much as it is with decision makers (directors, producers, impresarios, entrepreneurs, etc.), whose culture and tastes decline generationally, and in only half proportion to the rise of the ork-hordes, whose blasphemous toilet noise - fully compressed, E.Q.ed and reverberated - is increasingly considered to be the Industry Standard. If prosthetic software did not exist, they would not exist. Simple as that.

I so wish those f***s would care about music as much as they care about production... They will spend thousands of dollars treating their rooms acoustically, months or years learning how to ride modulation wheels, endlessly re-route signals, and quadruple-filter their master mix, but they refuse to spend ONE buck, or day to learn harmony, polyphony, orchestration, any music fundamentals... No, their innate "talent" (enter screaming laughter here) will take care of those tertiary minutiae... Being a Nobel laureate in music engineering and an  i l l i t e r a t e  pre-schooler in music per se, identifies one as anything BUT a symphonic composer! I had posted here a YouTube video of Hans being confounded by an appoggiatura for about 10 minutes(!) some time ago - perfectly indicative of everything I've been saying...

 Errikos,

I salute you in your righteous and admirably expressed Fire and Brimstone, raging with bulging veins upon your lonely, barren, lightning-blasted Grecian rock against the storm of  the New Zimmerian Idolators, and I for one wish to join the New Davidsbundler against the taiko pounding Hordes of the Unclean Compos(t)ers whose brains would explode like Tim Burton Martians if forced to compose a five part fugue like Bruckner's in his final conservatory exams during which the examiners stated unanimously, "He should have been examining us."

Brian,

I like your point - it is very positive and encouraging.  I must add that the bigshots today contradict that idealism, but on the other hand one can ocassionally here something very good and individualistic like what you allude to. 

@William said:

 Errikos,

I salute you in your righteous and admirably expressed Fire and Brimstone, raging with bulging veins upon your lonely, barren, lightning-blasted Grecian rock against the storm of  the New Zimmerian Idolators, and I for one wish to join the New Davidsbundler against the taiko pounding Hordes of the Unclean Compos(t)ers whose brains would explode like Tim Burton Martians if forced to compose a five part fugue like Bruckner's in his final conservatory exams during which the examiners stated unanimously, "He should have been examining us."

Great imagery as always William, and although I am waging this idealistic alphanumeric battle in my comfy studio, I must admit it's up on the mountain at least, with vantage vistas of the flatline-spiccato-spewing and Taiko-tumbling mouse-Centaurs below...

Five-part fugue?!?! They'd have to be able to come up with a subject first... By the way, I think I saw Bruckner's examiners' final report or his actual Diploma at the Musikverein museum during my recent visit to Vienna. What a coincidence that you brought this up...

 It might have been a four part fugue.  

Bruckner was quite a character, being a "country boy" who went to the big city, but always retained some of his humble country manners.  However, he was considered one of the greatest organists of the time (besides being a great composer) though oddly enough never wrote any organ music.   He was obsessed with numbers and counting, and was in a mental institute for a while, though lived happily into a very old age drinking Pilsner beer and composing massive symphonies.  A young girl he tried to go out with, and presented a bible to, threw it at him in disgust.  Apparently he was not too great at dating.   

Sorry, I hijacked the thread to Bruckner.