Has anyone else used this software? Is it publicly released so that others can use and (hopefully) extend it?

This is as impressive as computers being better than humans at chess; and the impact is mostly in attacking our notion of "creativity," just like really good chess programs do. But to say that it is a computer composing music is really just as luddite as to fear the idea that computers are composing music.

When color photography was introduced, did human painters go around lamenting that they were unneeded? I think the same situation is found here — creative humans who have always thought there was no way to “automatically create” works like theirs are having their eyes opened. But just as the canvas, paint and human touch result in something that, while possibly flawed, is still appreciated for what it is; the same will hold true of human composers. While Emily Howell may emulate many human aspects (even flaws) in composition, I would assert that there is more to those human nuances than mere randomness. It may be subtle and indistinguishable under many circumstances, but it’s still there. Emily Howell’s ability to completely “think outside the box” I believe will indeed be both her contribution and her achilles heel.

Finally, now that we have primitive software that can aid in the composition process, imagine the possibilities that we have. It’s like using Photoshop to produce works of art. Using Photoshop is not cheating — it’s just exploiting a tool in the creative process. The contribution of Emily Howell is just like that.

“We are so damned biased, even those of us who spend all our lives attempting not to be biased. Just the mere fact that when we like the taste of something, we tend to eat it more than we should. We have our physical body telling us things, and we can’t intellectually govern it the way we’d like to,” he says.

In other words, humans are more robotic than machines. “The question,” Cope says, “isn’t whether computers have a soul, but whether humans have a soul.”

After all these years of psychobabble infiltrating common parlance it’s strange that it isn’t common practice to apply the notion of ‘projection’ to the music- phenomenon (my years in art school were tarnished by this whole debate, which it was clear to me then and it clear to me now, was/is unnecessary, like the religion debate and several others, but which issue I was never able to discuss with the lecturers, invested as they were in the whole idea of artist as hero). It hinges on the concept that messages can and should be invested with particular meaning that is harvested intact by consumers. If that’s not the case, it’s not a matter of degree. If we can’t be sure we’re getting the whole intended message then we can’t be sure we’re getting ANY. in which case we also can’t be sure of the existence of intention or indeed of any intelligence at all (organic or not) instigating the message, although many of us prefer to presume for practical purposes that such is there.

Production and consumption of music occurs according to unwritten and unspoken contractual conditions. There is a relationship of trust and obligation in which the listener also consumes something of the injected person of the composer. We listen for his or her hopes, fears, pains and pleasures and hope that these will reflect our own. In other words, what we want apart from the pattern recognition experience, is exactly those biases and preferences that supposedly impede human attempts at originality. So music production and consumption are mostly a social process under strictly adhered to conditions. This is why EH bothers ppl so much; none of the expected contractual obligations are honoured.

Like the ideas that humans might have invented god, or that the events of the world were not created simply to test or reward especially oneself, and actually that ‘life’ has no meaning other than that which we can invest in it, the idea that the experience of listening to music could be by necessity entirely solipsistic is very disturbing to people. It must be a lonely realisation.

Ultimately it may be comforting apply a kind of uncertainty principle; we can’t be sure that artificial intelligence isn’t ‘real’, and if while acknowledging our human need for social connection through music we permit the understanding that the meaning we experience is really our own creation, whose verisimilitude (assuming the composers intention is the ‘real’ and originating important thing) we can never establish- THEN we may just sit back and actually enjoy the music.

Needless to say, she formed a look on her face that appeared as if I had said “fighting words”! But I myself do feel as well that a lot of times, us humans take things too seriously, and are pretentious, especially when it comes to classical music.

Honestly, I understand that you have theory, rules, tones, modes, intervals, harmony, dynamics, meter, and etc. But please answer this, who are any of you to say exactely how a Bach Prelude and Fugue, and Chopin Etude was performed and composed unless you were alive to hear them when it was performed? I mean, can you truly say that this is the correct interpretation of this or that unless you personally heard it from the composer themselves?

Most of the classics that we critique were written before any person able to read this message was born into existence. It doesn’t mean that your performance is bad, or wrong, but humans are not computers. yet we analyze this music as if it is static, and without any compromise of interpretation.

The only advantage a human composer has over a computer is the ability to assess music with he/r own ears and mind and heart. A human composer’s taste is formed partly by the music s/he has heard, but s/he can tell right away, without thinking, whether or not music affects he/r. A computer program can only assess music (or compose it) by measuring it against procedures derived from human music.

Cope’s software sounds like an impressive feat of programming and of investigating music! As a distillation of time-tested practices, it’s a tool for understanding music, and maybe a help for composing.

People have always longed for a single word or expression that could communicate
the uniqueness we all seem to feel. The idea of a “soul” has allowed individuals
to rationalize their fear of equality with other living things. So to, the
notion of “creativity” seeks to separate the individual from the crowd. But
there is nothing new under the sun. We are all made from the same stuff as the stars.

I compare Cope to Bach, who’s “Well-Tempered Clavier” is an example of his
exploration of contemporary technology to achieve expressive communication in
repeatable ways. Emily is a tool that offers Mr. Cope the opportunity to explore
concepts and ideas in a compressed time frame, not at all unlike the employment
of an apprentice or a shop full of artisans. What can be heartbreaking for the
master is that he must accept that his teaching skills may not support his
idealised concepts.

The tool is every bit as human as the product. Both reflect the time spent in
composition and execution. Tools do not define the art. They simply help release
the expression that is inherently there. A Stradivarius is just another fiddle
in unskilled hands.

I feel deeply for Mr. Cope because he has not yet achieved his heartfelt desire
to thrill a new generation with his music. I do believe he has inspired and will
continue to inspire others to explore unconventional methods of achieving great
art. Whether he achieves his dream or not, a life spent in pursuit of a dream is
a life well spent. In his own mind a failure perhaps, but hardly complete.