191,227 users have contributed to 42,789 threads and 257,330 posts.
In the past 24 hours, we have 2 new thread(s), 8 new post(s) and 42 new user(s).
@William said:
Your conception that "music has no meaning except for cliches" is false. If that were true then there would be no difference between music and white noise.
Creating emotions/feelings doesn't mean that music, paintings etc. should have semantics. Old music is full of cultural cliches making it easiar to be "get". But yes. To many people music from other cultures is just a kind of "noise". That actually proves my point.
No it does not. It simply proves that the meaning inherent in another kind of music is not discernible to someone ignorant of that culture. But that is not at all the same thing as meaningless cliches.
You have made it clear that you - with your highly intellectual approach to music - think that all meaning other than intellectualism - i.e. deterministic, mechanistic linear thought - is not meaning at all. In that you are profoundly mistaken. Half ot human history consists of other forms of meaning. And they are not reducible to "cultural cliches."
You have made it clear that you - with your highly intellectual approach to music - think that all meaning other than intellectualism - i.e. deterministic, mechanistic linear thought - is not meaning at all. In that you are profoundly mistaken. Half ot human history consists of other forms of meaning. And they are not reducible to "cultural cliches."
Agreed.
@Tom23 said:
Is VSL orchestration a new art form? Not entirely. I think of past writers of, say, fiction, writing with pen and ink, then the typewriter, and now the computer. I suspect the writer-by-hand did a lot more editing in his head than today's writer on a computer. The process has changed, the work less so. The marvel is looking backwards--so much early artists did without modern contrivances.
Definitely no "new art form". The analogy could perhaps be real instruments/VSL vs. oil painting/acryl painting:
wiki:
"Acrylic paint is fast-drying paint containing pigment suspended in an acrylic polymer emulsion. Acrylic paints can be diluted with water, but become water-resistant when dry. Depending on how much the paint is diluted (with water) or modified with acrylic gels, mediums, or pastes, the finished acrylic painting can resemble a watercolor or an oil painting, or have its own unique characteristics not attainable with the other media."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acrylic_paint
@William said:
and Jordan Belson whose films have just recently become available on DVD. The Center for Visual Music is releasing a number of these abstract films that directly relate images to music in an attempt at "translation."
Translation? Those are just animations. Couldn't find any music. Any links for music online?
My use of quotations indicates that the word is not exact. Jordan Belson is not animation. Everything he does is real-time, and he wished to avoid the imposition of movement upon image that animation involves. Also, I realize those are films from music, not the reverse, but they are obviously related, and in fact the thing that is most interesting is what happens when film images and music come from one source, completely unified.
I really agree with Tom23 about the "magic of VSL" - it is truly magical in Arthur C. Clarke's concept of "sufficiently advanced technology being indistinguishable form magic." Also, the idea that this magic allows music to exist - AUDIBLY instead of as a silent score sitting in a drawer - that would never exist otherwise. What a fantastic creation!
BTW playing bass for thirty years is definitely training... [:D]
"from music" - an interpretation in images FROM MUSIC that already exists.
"related" - there are many direct audio-visual relationships in the films. That was the whole point in making them.
"from one source" - that is my own ideal of image-music creation, coming from a single artistic inspiration in a way that Wagner dreamed opera could fulfill but which film can go far beyond. If one artist creates both the film and the music it is the ideal, but also can happen in rare cases with a composer who is perfectly suited tempermentally and artistically to a filmmaker's work, such as Hitchcock and Herrmann, Kieslowski and Preisner, or perhaps Burton and Elfman.
After reading through all of the responses to William's original question I must say the conversations have been, to say the least, interesting. Most of the debates seem to focus on whether or not the phenomenon that is VSL merely helps composers realize internal orchestral scores (heard internally in the traditional sense), or changes the way composers think about orchestral (symphonic) music, hence allowing composers to tread uncharted waters compared to traditional orchestral writing. In and of itself, VSL is not an art form. It is software. VSL is an incredible tool, but as with anything computer related, the software is at the mercy (and the talent) of the user (a human being).
Can VSL allow composers to create a new art form? Will VSL allow composers to usher in a new musical epoch? This can only happen when VSL or something like it is used to create a new art form. Software, and VSL in particular, may indeed be the key that unlocks the future of symphonic music, and in this twenty-first century all composers are in that liminal space, musically speaking, standing between what is past and what will come. It will be interesting to see in the coming years what great composers and visionaries can do with such a vital tool as the Vienna Symphonic Library.
James
@vandergraaf12 said:
Can VSL allow composers to create a new art form? Will VSL allow composers to usher in a new musical epoch? This can only happen when VSL or something like it is used to create a new art form. Software, and VSL in particular, may indeed be the key that unlocks the future of symphonic music, and in this twenty-first century all composers are in that liminal space, musically speaking, standing between what is past and what will come. It will be interesting to see in the coming years what great composers and visionaries can do with such a vital tool as the Vienna Symphonic Library.
New art form?
One approach will be: anybody making music using VSL/... and music generators in an integrated way. I have understood that VSL is selling single instruments already. The the cost/memory problems would be solved. My idea is:
picture -> music generation from any photo -> playing with selected set of sw instruments
I guess that if Synestesia sw package and VSL insturments could be integrated, the market potential could be very high.
Is that approach a "new art form"? My claim is that it is. The innovation would be in the integrated approach. And the platforms could be pc/mac, internet, mobile phone... Elementary level, medium level, advance level...
Opinions?
I like the idea of your system though wonder if it involves very much creativity on the part of the "composer." How can the composer be made more significant with your automated generation of notes? For example - you talk about generating a 10 minute piece in 5 seconds. It can take a human composer a year for that, depending on the piece and the person. Because everything is "generated" by his brain. So the parameters of your system must be made to use more input from the composer, I feel. Though I do think your system is a very interesting idea and I hope it succeeds.
@William said:
It can take a human composer a year for that, depending on the piece and the person. Because everything is "generated" by his brain. So the parameters of your system must be made to use more input from the composer, I feel. Though I do think your system is a very interesting idea and I hope it succeeds.
Well. I am the one who selects sw instruments and the articulations, and the photos and who does the preliminary listening. Amm I not just that: "Composer who uses samples for art"?
The software does sound very interesting but I would say that a person using it is not a composer as they do note create the notes that are played - the software does. The user's creative input is limited to timbre so I would say that the user is arranging the musical material, rather than composing it. Arranging is an important part of the process of composing, but arranging in itself is not composing, it is arranging.
However, reading this thread and thinking about how this software seems to work makes me consider the nature of aleatoric music. How much "randomness" is acceptable before the composer ceases to be a composer? Does the fact that the user of this software selects the method by which "randomness" is obtained make them any more of a composer? I would say not, but it's a good question all the same!
Regards,
Martin
@mosso said:
However, reading this thread and thinking about how this software seems to work makes me consider the nature of aleatoric music. How much "randomness" is acceptable before the composer ceases to be a composer? Does the fact that the user of this software selects the method by which "randomness" is obtained make them any more of a composer? I would say not, but it's a good question all the same!
My software is not using random numbers and the photos used have structure. I guess we are missing the proper word, aleatoric is not right.
Perhaps you know UPIC created by Yannic Xenakis:
http://membres.lycos.fr/musicand/INSTRUMENT/DIGITAL/UPIC/UPIC.htm
Who is the composer in that case? Drawing ... photo ...
2 CDs composed by using UPIC:
http://membres.lycos.fr/musicand/INSTRUMENT/DIGITAL/UPIC/UPIC.htm
Dear Lauri,
I was lucky enough to spend a week with the UPIC many years ago, and (together with a team) put together a composition of around 5 minutes or so - at the time the UPIC was a rare and expensive item that took about 3 months to ship and set up; I'm not sure whether it has become cheaper with time. I hesitate to say "composed" regarding the piece, since it is not really an act of composition, at least in the way I understood it both before and since - in truth, I'm not sure at all what it was.
The process of composition for "meta" music such as this (and maybe we should include concrete / tape splicing music in this) is, based on my somewhat hazy memory of those experiences, a much more intellectual process than "regular" composition - and, I suspect, much more influenced by happy mistakes. I remember I had more the sense that "I draw this, it sounds like that, I influence it this way, play it, like it, sounds good, move on to the next thing". It's not the way I am accustomed to composing in the normal scheme of things - I normally know what sound I want to make, and influence the instruments to achieve that. Maybe it was because I only did it for a week...
William - with the greatest and genuine respect - I believe that you are wrong to be overly concerned about the role of the composer in all of this to the extent that we should increase the role by allowing them to change additional parameters etc. If we are to set aside the role of the performer in this discussion (and I think we are, because it really has not been mentioned so far), that will be because the performer is simply a conduit of the music. If that is the case, then so is the composer a conduit of the composition. The composition is definitely the important item in the equation. Therefore, a more efficient conduit (sad as that may seem for the humanists) is more effective, even if that involves diminishing or even removing the composer. I'm not saying I like it, but I'm not sure what place the composer has in the discussion, other than a chap who arbitrarily selects stuff based on their own preferences - which means the composer is almost irrelevant. And in computer-generated music, perhaps this is the way it should be.
What is significantly more difficult to achieve through computers is the very thing that Lauri (naturally) eschews - cliche. The cliches that have been built up from the point since people were banging on rocks in a rhythmic manner. At the moment, there is limited ability to draw on these programmatically without something approaching a collage being put together - a sequence of programmed "usual solutions".
It raises an interesting consideration though - perhaps we are viewing automatically generated music such as the piece by Lauri in a positive light ONLY because we are viewing it through our cliche-ridden ears. Without this backdrop of cliches that we are so familiar with, we almost certainly would not have a set of criteria to base critical opinion on - to be able to say "this sounds pleasant, that sounds incompetent".
Sorry for the ramble - its an interesting subject.
Kind Regards,
Nick.
lgrohn,
Before replying to your post I took the time to visit your website and learn about synestesia. It is interesting yet problematic. In the link titled "Music Generated from Pictures," you claim that, "[The] Synestesia Method is based on filtering pixels "away" and on using several selectable parameters. Using parameters is like looking [at a] sculpture from different angles or in different lightings and environments. The picture and the list of parameters together form the metascore of the composition. The challenge is to find pictures generating interesting music" (Method).
You later state that synestesia does not use a random method but is deterministic. A photograph may indeed determine what is rendered musically using your software, yet by saying that the method filters pixels away leads me to believe that (a) if the software itself is filtering the pixels this is done randomly, or (b) if the pixel filtering is managed by the user of the software then the photograph no longer determines what is rendered musically, thus the music is no longer determined solely by the photograph. And if (b) is the true "composers" method for using the sofware, the intial rendering of the photograph into music will be a completely random process. There is no way that the user could "hear" the photograph or what will be rendered by the software until the software performs its function. If the result of (b) is used as a template by a composer who then further edits or arranges what is scored by synestesia then I suppose from a creative standpoint the software holds value to someone with the skills already in hand to perform the editing and arranging functions. And your stating that "The challenge is to find pictures generating interesting music" is problematic as well. This is a matter of subjective analysis and leads to people randomly choosing what they deem is artistically viable.
As for your claim that synestesia is an art form. What is art is a highly subjective matter as well. If you believe that synestesia is an art form, who am I to say that it isn't?
I will dig deeper into synestesia. I am intrigued by it and will post again soon.
James
Very interesting replies.
I feel the selection of instruments/articulations is almost trivial compared to actual composition. I know that is heresy on the website of the greatest selection of instruments/articulations on the planet. But even so, the Art of Fugue was not scored for anything and it is one of the greatest achievements of the human race. So if all the metacomposer does is orchestrate/perform (which is essentially the same as selecting instruments/articulations) it is a huge step down from the past. There need to be direct correspondences which are creatively selected as highly detailed parameters - such as a low note for the color red, a high note for the color blue, a short note for a small spikey object, a long note for a long sinuous object - etc. YES LGROHN I KNOW THESE ARE ALL SUBJECTIVE AND NOT ABSOLUTE AND COULD BE CALLED "CULTURAL CLICHES" but that is art!
Nevertheless I agree it is an intriguing concept, also very appropriate for a sample library that is often used for generating music to accompany images, though in a very different way.