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Automatic Christmas Music
crispinalt writes "Just in time for the holiday season, Brian Whitman, the creator of Eigenradio, has had his computers compose the 'statistically optimal' Christmas music in A Singular Christmas, a freely downloadable MP3 album. A bank of computers listened to as much Christmas music as they could handle, and then learned their own true meaning of holiday cheer. Enjoy!"
Not really new I think. :)
They already use this technique to churn out new Boybands and Reality TV shows - at least that's the only way I can explain them.
+++ MELON MELON MELON +++ Out of Cheese Error +++ redo from start +++
You know, sometimes slashdot reminds me of that old Weird Al movie UHF:
Stanley Spadowski: Who wants to take a drink from the fire hose!
*Kid gets knocked up against the wall by the water pressure*
Slashdot is the water pressure.
Is it just me or does anyone else think it's a bit weird to have a computer pick out everything in our lives? Do we really need a computer to tell us what music we like to listen to? I don't think so.
It was strange watching A Charlie Brown Christmas last night, which is in large part a polemic against the commercialization of Christmas... from 1965.
It was immediately followed by an ad for Kohl's Christmas sale, Mervyn's (I think) Christmas sale, and a Christmas sale at a local car dealership. (Along with a couple of other commercials that weren't Christmas.)
I'm not sure I'd really want to advertise my Christmas specials during or immediately following the airing of A Charlie Brown Christmas.
I find Eigenradio and likewise this Christmas project as something of an overworked joke. The resulting buzzing noise isn't really listen-able or interesting or telling.
You could take all the stuff in your refrigerator--a composite, if you will of all your favorite foods, toss them in a blender and you'd have an unappealing brown slop. Ha ha. Kind of funny conceptually, but you wouldn't necessarily open a restaurant serving it.
"...all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness..." yada yada
I'm not sure I'd really want to advertise my Christmas specials during or immediately following the airing of A Charlie Brown Christmas.
No, but it proves that most people probably just watch the pretty cartoons, and have no concept of the meaning of what they've just watched. Because you KNOW that most of them watch the show, then said, "Oooh, Mervyn's is having a sale!".
ender-
Nothing to see here
to do a mathematical analysis of tonal and atonal music, there isn't a significant difference (atleast with good atonal music, which is hard to come by) suggesting the difference lies within our biology.
the reason this music seems so repulsive is likely the fact that the computer only studied the music.
in the middle ages, back when that root of all evil the christian church (catholic? same thing) ruled europe, certain chords were deemed "dissonant" because priests didnt like the way they sounded. i believe it all started firstly with the "devil's" chord. anywho, any competant musician can tell you that its really hard, maybe impossible, to write good music using dissonant chords.
i think it was mozart, maybe bach, who tried to write a symphony using dissonant chords. but he could not.
in much computerized music, and indeed in this music, dissonant chords find free reign, possibly due to a sense of anti-inhibition and free spirit-y-ness (okay, i made that word up, but you should understand what i mean) on the part of the programmer, or maybe just a lack of experience in creating music.
maybe this kind of thing would turn out better if the computer started from the beginning, and used the conventions, before trying to break them.
isn't that the rule about learning to code? and about learning to write?
if you think im making shit up, you can always check my facts yer selves, you lazy punks! wikipedia roxorz!
When you're afraid to download music illegally in your own home, then the terrorists have won!
Except that John Cage's version is 4:33. And Silent Night was first performed in it's current form in 1818, so John Cage is the one in trouble. That is, if he weren't already dead.
of my life that I'll never get back. How is it that this not-quite-random noise is considered worthy of note on /.? If it were of decent artisitc quality, I could see why it might make news, but I could churn out garbage like this on my Apple IIe in elementary school.
Thanks! ^_^ You'd think the MIT would be intelligent enough to set up a torrent themselves...
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
So is it just me, or does it seem like Slashdot, knowing that they are about to post a link and bury a server, should maybe offer a temporary torrent system for stories that they post. This was only 60M. They have the user accounts all set up and ready to go. They could even offer karma to seeders (or yank Karma from leechers that bail)
./ blows more bandwidth on the banner ad on the page then it would take to just show you the picture/article/etc)
I'm not saying host the files forever, just till they fall off the main page or so. It's the same with stories. A CacheDot would ease the first three posts commenting on the missing server.
Just a thought. Don't get me wrong, if you Slashdot yourself for shits and giggles, you get what you asked for, but for people that get submitted by other people, it's a different story. (Plus half the time
But the sleigh rides I did on many many occasions with various groups, singing carols and having a great time. Of course, they were wheeled, but the horse was there, the hot chocolate, and the great time. All the young kids watching for road apples behind us, all the older kids (when there were no adults in the sleigh), up against the front making out with their dates.
I've done two as an adult, once with friends with kids. I'd imagine that as more and more of my friends have kids (and as I approach that milestone), it'll start happening again.
There have also been a couple times with the modern version: a gaggle of people singing carols in the back of a pickup truck driving around to look at Christmas lights.
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
If I remember correctly, Cope's methods were vaguely similar to Mister Whitman's in the very broadest sense, in that EMI created a large probabilitive database to analyze the connections between melodic and harmonic events. Obviously, this database would be 'calibrated' to the style of the music given as input. I never studied EMI, so I don't know how deep the simulation of pseudogrammar went, but it certainly produced some interesting results. One year in orchestra we actually performed a faux-Mozart overture reconstituted from Don Giovanni. I remember that the one composer EMI was able to simulate with uncanny plausibility was Scott Joplin (insert predictably caustic remark of your choice).
The problem with Eigenradio is that it lacks even EMI's limited contextual awareness. It would be akin to writing a book by analyzing the most common positions of ink secretions on the page. And so, not surprisingly, the "music" produced is simply uniformly limpid collages of sound without any underlying form, direction, or meaning.
Yeah I think you got it - these algorithms do not recognize what humans find attractive about music - such things as rhythm, and having mostly major-scale harmony and very little dissonance, especially in "happy music" like Christmas music.
And saying that it is statistically optimal feels Orwellian.
But I suspect the researchers don't actually like this stuff either, they're just curious to observe people's reactions.