Resurrecting Performers Via Computer Performance

putko writes "The NYT has an article entitled 'Play It Again, Vladimir (via Computer)' that discusses efforts to transform old recordings into new, computer played performances (reg. required), by determining how the previous performer made the sounds and redoing it. Further efforts attempt to distill the 'style' of a performer and play other scores with the same style. As can be expected, musicologists argue over whether or not the new musical artifact is really 'a performance'. Philip K. Dick would be proud."

Comments

Not really.

[aussersterne]

The humanity is in the variability (think of them as "mistakes" in a flawless performance) not in the perfection. And a perfect imitation of a specific instance of humanity is still not human, because the mistakes are out of context. This is the same reason that random computer-generated mistakes, even perfectly random ones, still don't sound human.

When a human performs, the performance is subtly affected by the things that affect humans: the weather outside and whether it's gloomy or not; the fact that it's the holiday season; the fact that a leader has been assassinated or the performer's daughter has been ill; the musty mugginess of the air in the auditorium... these subtle types of phenomenological data affect human performances in ways that the audience and performer can share as a kind of unconscious communication, at least so long as they are from the same culture.

A computer that reproduces a previous performance, even if it does so perfectly, does so out of context. It is making all the wrong mistakes for the current situation, so it's playing just doesn't ring true. Until computers can feel gloomy because of gloomy weather, or can be thrilled because the millenium dawns at midnight, five minutes from now, they won't be able to produce performances that truly move us in the same way that human performances do, because that element of unconscious situational communication and solidarity in shared experience is missing.

Re:Not really.

[timeOday]

Until computers can feel gloomy because of gloomy weather, or can be thrilled because the millenium dawns at midnight, five minutes from now, they won't be able to produce performances that truly move us in the same way that human performances do, because that element of unconscious situational communication and solidarity in shared experience is missing.

I guess we'll find out, because I'm sure somebody will do a study to validate this new technology. It shouldn't be too hard to do a Turing-test sort of thing here, with listeners trying to distingish between the human and the inhuman.

Personally I think much of the beauty of art is sociological. In the right mood you can see art in a dog squat, but for the most part we stick to admiring what other people admire. A painting is worthless during an artist's lifetime, later sells for $40M after the artist achieves greatness retrospectively, then debate erupts over whether the painting was actually the work of "poorly skilled" forger. But there's no consensus, because everybody reads the tea leaves differently. In other words, the art itself really has little intrinsic value.

Re:Tester

[AmberBlackCat]

I guess if it works, it could reproduce the music exactly, since the music was probably done on synthesizers equipment anyway. But if it were trying to do non-rap vocals n a rap style (or any vocals in a style different from what was intended), it will probably sound really strange because the attitude of the vocals won't match the attitude of the music.

But this might work out nicely if the simulated artist performs a different musical style with a similar attitude, such as hard core rock being performed with the style of Public Enemy or Tupac. The attitude of the performer would match that of of the music even though they're different styles. A lot of rappers and rockers pair up nicely. I think Run DMC and Aerosmith were the first and that was great.

Glen Gould

[Jambon]

to make old recordings new...Glenn Gould without the mumbling

Why? Part of what made Gould's performances so special was the fact that he did mumble during them. Hearing him mumble helped you understand his mind. I say it isn't Gould if I can hear any mumbling!