http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-31696001
“Retired engineer Seth Goldstein has created a ”kinetic sculpture" that can replicate digital music files and play them on a violin.
The machine uses software to analyse the digital files and generate numbers to control the electronics and power the machine’s motors - enabling the violin to produce the same notes as were originally played."
They’ll never replace humans until they can build machines that gripe about the other machines.
Wow, this is really incredible.
But I think this kind of machines will never replace a real musician. Phew. 🙂
Anyway, an other example : the Android Apps for Uilleann pipes drone/regulator.
No worries - at least we will always have simple system flutes and whistles
and anything with strings, especially those without frets.
No machine will ever displace them, because the subtleties of a
human’s ability to produce evocative sound cannot be matched, let alone replaced,
by anything that is not sentient and emotional. And, in addition, a machine cannot
improvise - it can only be programmed, by a human, to improvise in that person’s
limited and imperfect way.
Now, drum machines - time to worry.
😉
“ the Android Apps for Uilleann pipes drone/regulator.”
Allegedly a Mr Steve Cooney is a fan…
Q. How many kinetic sculptures does it take to change a lightbulb?
A. Three. One to change the lightbulb, and two to argue about how Frankie Gavin woud have changed it.
m.d.
Machines *can* replace real musicians. All that is needed is for someone to invent a listening machine to replace the human audience.
That’s a great idea CMO!
Such a machine would have a dial for listening preferences that could include “Pure drop”, “Bothy Band”, “The Gloaming” and, going all the way to 11, “Flook”.
August 29th -
SKYNET become self aware.
August 30th -
Upgrades itself to TRADNET.
Immediately perceives all spoon players as threats.
Uh-oh…
Spoons 🙂
Your move, Mr. Eskin! 🙂
Well, if it’s possible to replicate MIDI files on an analogue device, it’s theoretically possible to do the same thing with a recording of a human violiner / fiddlist. Much more complexity involved, but it’s still possible.
Point 1 - if anyone worked towards this and succeeded in making a fully-functional metal Spankie Flavin, I doubt very much if it would be of any practical use (apart from the supreme satisfaction of its creator, who no doubt had it drummed into him that a machine could never capture the emotions of a human player playing).
Point 2 - it would bear out my viewpoint that (while music is lovely and human emotions are lovelier), at the end of the day everything is reducible to mechanics and technique.
Uh-oh.
Perhaps I overstated above.
Point 2:
Yes - certain sounds and rhythms surely are evocative for a large group of humans in the same ways, if they share common previous experience and programming. So it would seem that this potential, when triggered by a familiar tune, will register emotional responses from association with past experiences shared by that group. So, for a group of Frenchmen of patriotic sense, playing the “Marseillaise” around La Fête nationale in a stirring fashion can generate tears and fervor, though for someone without the shared experiences, it might not.
All that is needed to exploit this is the ability to read an audience correctly to find their emotional vulnerabilities and stimulate them, using the musical values which they know. And, as you stated, it is all mathematically measurable and therefore theoretically reproducible by technological means.
Damn.
We are replaceable.
🙁
Until someone perfects the machine that can make the same random and stupid mistakes I do while playing I’d say there’s nothing to worry about.
“The machine uses software to analyse the digital files and generate numbers to control the electronics and power the machine’s motors - enabling the violin to produce the same notes as were originally played.”
So at least it’s learning by ear, eh?