While not directly related to the article, but more related to the headline -- I was just catching up on some of what Beardyman's been up to lately:<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPBM69nThkM" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPBM69nThkM</a><p>Now, that's one example of what <i>human</i> vocal cords (with various degrees computer augmentation) are capable of. While the things discussed in the article may be interesting... the reference to vocal cords seems somewhat misplaced?<p>[edit: I should perhaps clarify/highlight that the above video does <i>not</i> feature drum machines etc -- "only" sampling, looping and "warping". Easier to follow, is this video I like to call "I was hip-hop before ducks":<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39n4wow8fWE" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39n4wow8fWE</a>
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Somehow, digging in deeper on this subject led me to another video (which I just shared - <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7195652" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7195652</a>) of a player piano emulating human speech by reproducing the part of the spectral fingerprint within it's range. Eerie
I found this article very difficult to read, and while it talks a lot about procedural music, I don't think that any of the people it covers are making any <i>except</i> the "Birthday Song Crew", who are clearly geniuses.<p>It did, however, introduce me to <a href="http://yaxu.org/tidal/" rel="nofollow">http://yaxu.org/tidal/</a> which is going to force me to finally learn Haskell.
I love music and experimentation but I find those pieces portrayed there quite devoid of emotional content.<p>I like the idea of procedural music being created automatically, but I believe that the end result still need to inspire and transport the listener. I have no doubts that we will be able to make some pretty convincing stuff in the future, and it probably won't be a lot worse than what's already playing in the charts.
For those talking about the lack of emotional content, I found that this video -- for Holly Herndon's "Movement" -- helped some of this work make more sense. Of course, Herndon's music isn't really "automatically generated" and features a lot of human vocal samples.<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kanNN4RPrOf" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kanNN4RPrOf</a> (NSFW, in most workplaces -- two dancers in underwear.)
About just as interesting as automatically generated novels. A machine has no intention. It doesn't "want" to turn itself on or off and play some music.