V.com weekend vote: Does AI represent a true threat to classical music?
Behold a piece of "classical violin music," created by Artificial Intelligence, that actually sounds pretty authentic:
Violinist Daniel Kurganov - who has a wonderful Youtube channel - used Artificial Intelligence (AI) to create this music, and it's caused quite a stir in the time since he posted, it several weeks ago under the title "Did AI Just Kill Classical Music?" In essence, the piece is a fabrication with no composer, no soloist, no named movements.
In writing about the AI piece that he created, Kurganov asked some philosophical questions: "How do we understand what good string playing is? What exactly have we learned about the intricacies of nuance and beauty? How much of it is mystery, impossible to teach or understood in explicit terms? Can it only be emulated and passed on from one emotional being to the next? I would like to gently challenge all of our preconceptions with this sample of music I created."
"What you are hearing is music entirely composed by and played by Artificial Intelligence," Kurganov wrote. "My role was minimal, limited to guiding the AI with simple text instructions and using my taste to approve, reject, and combine iterations. This represents a groundbreaking moment advancement in technology—and this is the dumbest these tools will ever be. So, we must ask: are we seeing the end of classical music as we know it, or does this mark a new beginning?"
What are your feelings about this piece that Daniel created, and furthermore, what are your feelings about emerging AI technology and its possible effect on classical music? Is AI something that could enhance what we are doing as musicians and music lovers? What is the potential? Or is it a threat to musicians, artists and the human creative spirit? Or perhaps it is something in between?
Please participate in the vote, and then share your thoughts on this subject.
* * *
Enjoying Violinist.com? Click here to sign up for our free, bi-weekly email newsletter. And if you've already signed up, please invite your friends! Thank you.
Tweet
Replies
We need to specify whether we're talking about the creative act of composing music, or the re-creative one of playing it. Or of doing both? A visual artist does both, but some use technological means to enable them. The possibilities are endless. What is your actual question?
I’m talking about both, and I’d like the conversation to go wherever people can take it.
After some consideration I voted no because the question is posed in present tense. I do not think that AI is a threat now or will be in the foreseeable future. There will be changes but not to the point of amounting to the death of music (if music ever dies it won't be only classical music, I am confident about that)
What happens two generations in the future nobody can know.
As music, I found the examples played here to be rather boring and monochromatic, so I don't see it threatening classical music. If the instructions given had asked for music in the style of some specific composer, or even several composers combined, the results might have been more interesting..... but that would be plagiarism
I voted No.
The majority of those enjoying soccer does it via a screen, eg on TV.
If AI can replicate a game of soccer as a video and we stream that, is soccer dead then?
Already today there is the WCCC, World Computer Chess Championship, where computers play against eachother.
These computers play so far above what humans can do, and are streamed on the internet.
Still, human chess has more online followers than ever.
So I voted no.
Music is so much more than just the presentation of a product. Especially when it has a long history.
I am totally missing a pulse in the AI-generated violin + piano piece. Sure, in such romantic pieces one takes a lot of rubato, but, still there is a pulse, which is missing here. Anyway, if big tech keeps wasting our planet's resources to create larger and larger neural networks, almost anything plausible will be generated soon. The big rhetorical question however is, is that really the world problem that needed solving??
I don’t particularly like this piece; it comes across as boring and pretentious to me, but that’s true of some human-written music as well.
To me, music has a story. I like to find out about composers and their history. That enriches the listening experience. And when I go to concerts I tend to go to community groups, people I know. I also enjoy that part of the experience. I found the story behind how this video was made the most interesting part of the video by far. iuiij
If a composer or performer fit AI into their story and told that story as a part of the performance, and if the music was something I liked to listen to, then I would probably accept it as another tool for creating.
The crucial question is, does it pass the Turing test? I could definitely be fooled that this is human-composed and played by a human violinist. Whether it's "good" music or not hardly seems relevant since IMO nobody is writing "good" classical music any more. I'd like to know how it sounds in Haydn...
It has a good sound, and what scares me is the person who knows how to manipulate AI without any knowledge of music, or any instrument could "compose and play" such a piece. Sadly there are such dishonest people in every walk of life.
I didn't feel like the piece was going anywhere. And I agree with Karen A's comments. I also don't think that the performance and the music should be rated together. They're two different kettles of fish. For example, if the violin-playing program was told to keep a certain emotion in mind while "playing", it wouldn't matter how much or what kind of emotion the music itself embodied.
After playing around with SUNO for a while, I'm certain that AI music is the end for anyone making any money at all in what tattered remains are left in the music industry, except for maybe busking. Even busking will be gone eventually too, as fewer and fewer people bother learning to play any instrument not inside their phone.
Most people that listen to (all forms of)music are, frankly, dumb oafs. Whatever comes over the speakers, there they go, tapping and singing along. Consider "modern country" for example. They don't care how it was made, and their only thoughts about a piece, were put in their heads by marketers.
It is disheartening. I've spent many years composing and playing. My creation of a piece can take hours, days, weeks. SUNO.ai takes 1 second. In a few minutes it can generate thousands. Pick some you like. Generate a few thousand more. Free. Zero effort. That is what the masses will go for.
We (all musicians, all composers) are instantly an anachronism, like the horse people, the crazy passion of a few.
If you doubt me at all, go over to SUNO and make a few tunes. It will make anything you like.
In the short term, some youtube "influencers" will make a few pennies putting up curated playlists of AI stuff, but in a year or two, that will be gone also, as your phone will just automatically generate whatever you want to hear.
At this point I'm just watching from a distance, with that slight feeling of dread and horror. It's the C rated horror movie I don't feel like watching, but I'm stuck watching it anyway.
Of course the movie industry (and youtubers) are about to be wiped out, by AI, too...
I voted No because the piece presented lacks soul. It came across as boring and pretentious, as Karen said. If this is the best AI can do, under the guidance of a real musician at that, we need not fear for classical music.
It is not the best AI can do. Play around with it yourself and see. Everyone says it is nothing until they use it themselves. Prepare to have your mind blown. Imagine what it will be like a few years from now. It will be making music far better than anything ever made, by all humans, in all time. It's over.
Go over to SUNO yourself and make some music. Only takes a minute.
I run the ai musescore group
https://musescore.com/groups/ai
Yes, it's threat to the _business_ of classical music, though human-produced classical music will be around for at least the short term. Spotify has already replaced jazz played by real players with AI stuff. Most casual listeners can't tell the difference, and it helps to ensure that musicians remain unpaid for their efforts.
I'm fooled by the playing: many players have a fixed-rate vibrato that starts late.
The music itself is third rate posturing.
It's what I expected: musical gestures unmotivated by feeling and with no hope of consequence. I could not begin to place it in any historical, biographical or stylistic context. Like packet soup or cake-mix baking, it left me thinking that it's remarkable that it is possible, but I never want to experience it again.
After the first period of novelty I don't see how any music can have a "wow" factor if you know it was produced by a computer. If you don't know and then somebody tells you you'll feel cheated.
The point is not so much what it can do now as to what it will be able to do in the future. I have come across things like Bach style harmonies, the computer scientists cannot tell the difference but if I was marking an exam paper the machine would be scrapping a pass. Unlike other technological revolutions where things improve in a predictable way this one will get a lot better suddenly - brace yourselves.
I may be naively optimistic, but I tend to believe that the final effect of AI generated music and its inevitable synthetic tedium may well be a strong boost and stimulus to live music-making, composing and individual performances, including orchestral music, house concerts, ensembles, recitals, jam sessions, street musicians, fiddlers, buskers, all the traditional forms of music making by living people, from different cultures, with all their unpredictability. Because who wants to live in a house of robots. . . ?
I voted no, if only because music - classical and otherwise - has withstood many threats in the past. The music will always be there, and there will always be people who want to make it because it is enjoyable to both make and share music.
As for AI, I've been ignoring it - and after listening to that rambling collection of notes, I shall continue to do so. I have enough things to do that I have neither the time nor the inclination to chase the latest fad.
I play viola in a community orchestra, and fiddle and mandolin in various bluegrass jams. We get enjoyment from making music, not listening to something that someone else has produced (although we appreciate a good performance as much as anyone - how well does a computer perform?).
I think Harry Chapin summed it up beautifully in his ballad Mr. Tanner:
But music was his life; it was not his livelihood.
And it made him feel so happy; it made him feel so good.
And he sang from his heart, and he sang from his soul.
He did not know how well he sang; it just made him whole.
At the moment no, but I reserve the right to reevaluate my position as AI improves and becomes more ubiquitous.
For starters, I play music for a number of reasons; it develops my mind, emotional and physical abilities and connects the these parts of my brain very pleasantly --albeit along with a lot of practice--through the stages of my life, and makes me a better performer and music maker.
Performing to an audience, I connect to my audience and they to me, and elicits an experience very different for all of us than if I or they are hearing a recording. It is not about being better or worse, it is about being "present."
Watching a human(s) performing in real time also connects me to the music and to the performer, and even to others in the audience. Certainly it is a different experience than not having the performer there. Even performances using humans interacting with a "generated" set of sounds or instruments (not just for amplification) is a different experience than listening to a recording of the same. You may have even noticed that once you SEE a performer in real time, their recorded music takes on a different, more impactful experience.
Will AI take the place of all this? I don't think so--it is simply another genre of music presentation, and might just produce some interesting outcomes. But the HUMAN interacting with sound/music and its affects on the individual and the community is what is important to me.
I voted no. Modern atonal music didn’t wipe out Mozart. Synthesizers didn’t make traditional acoustic instruments obsolete. Digital recording and playback technologies haven’t wiped out the concert halls and recital rooms. As long as there are classical musicians who love performing on their instruments, and as long as there is a willing audience to connect with, which there is, I don’t see AI being a threat to classical music. Newer delivery methods will no doubt emerge, but I’m confident that this music will go on.
This article has been archived and is no longer accepting comments.
Violinist.com is made possible by...
Dimitri Musafia, Master Maker of Violin and Viola Cases
Johnson String Instrument/Carriage House Violins
Subscribe
Laurie's Books
Discover the best of Violinist.com in these collections of editor Laurie Niles' exclusive interviews.
Violinist.com Interviews Volume 1, with introduction by Hilary Hahn
Violinist.com Interviews Volume 2, with introduction by Rachel Barton Pine
May 19, 2024 at 12:56 AM · There are those that believe that there is something metaphysical about art, and things that are created by humans. History has shown that when people cannot easily distinguish artificial things, then the metaphysics is typically relegated to academic.
This technology will not close orchestras overnight. However, it will put more pressure on musicians. Eventually, if machines can produce art that is indistinguishable from that made by humans, then human generated art will be devalued, as there will be abundant supply for free.
It will also increase the amount of important music that is created and increase the number of people that can be involved in music making.