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

How about no...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ask a piano player if a digital piano is a passable substitute. Yes it's pretty damn good... but still not the same...

Re:How about no...

[NanoGator]

"Ask a piano player if a digital piano is a passable substitute. Yes it's pretty damn good... but still not the same..."

It beats the silence played by a decomposing musician.

Re:How about no...

[Leroy_Brown242]

"It beats the silence played by a decomposing musician."

Well, some times.

And the Point is???

[schestowitz]

Sinatra singing Oops I did it Again?

There are some innovations which are novel, but aren't quite built to be of use.

Tester

[Mattygfunk1]

Yeah but can it do hardcore gangster rap?

__
Funny Adult Videos

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.

Re:Tester

[VirtuaKnight]

>Yeah but can it do hardcore gangster rap?

int main()
{
for(int i=0;i10;i++)
switch(rand()%3)
{
case 0:
printf("Blew that sucka away with my nine.\n");
case 1:
printf("Slapped my ho' 'cause she didn't pay up.\n");
case 2:
printf("G-G-G-G-G-G-G-UNIT!!!\n");
}
}

Re:Tester

[Queer Boy]

I think Run DMC and Aerosmith were the first and that was great.

It was the shizzle for rizzle ma nizzle!

Interesting

[treff89]

This displays the power of modern computing. To be able to "replicate" a song by replicating human thought processes shows that, finally, there is a balance between fast systems, and complex software available to utilise them. After all, what use is a 10Ghz 512-bit 3Ghz FSB 1GB video RAM 10GB RAM machine - when you're running Word? Complex simulation programs are the way of the future.

Re:Interesting

[prichardson]

The computer doesn't replicate thought processes, it replicates the technical things that the player is doing. It would be impossible to replicate the player's thought processes because no one on the planet could know exactly what was going through someone's head.

See Also

[stuffman64]

See more information about it here, from (*ahem*) an older Slashdot article...

Re:See Also

[stuffman64]

Hmm... quite caustic there (but aren't all cowards that way?).

If you notice, this is not a repost, rather, it's a story relating to one mentioned earlier. I just thought I'd point that out, since it was quite relevant to the topic.

Great work

[karvind]

I think these effort should be well appreciated.

Cutting Archives does a lot of restoration work. Check their faq

We also had a cool story on slashdot before about Concert to be Performed from Beyond the Grave

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.

[aussersterne]

I can't send you to a paper that specifically mirrors my description, but if you pick up just about any journal in the cognitive, behavioral, or social sciences and read half of it, you'll find that it's generally in keeping with our basic understanding of human interaction: part of what we find so impressive about face-to-face interaction or performances are the millions of subtle clues that aren't at all verbal but that nonetheless impart information.

For this information to be meaningful, however (and thus moving, or interesting), there must be a shared awareness of context and a reasonably compatible match between enculturation and/or conceptual frameworks for meaning-making.

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.

Disklavier

[rookworm]

I am a musician, and I have heard these things in person. For performances recorded directly on a Disklavier, the recording is indistinguishable from the original to my ears (and to every other musiciain I have talked to about this). If the technique in the article is indeed accurate, then this could mean great things. However, as the article mentioned, it is much more difficult to determine when the notes stop sounding, and pedalling, than the attacks. There is the interesting question of copyright: for ancient recordings ressurrected, who owns what? and is it possible to just tweak a few notes and then do what you want with the thing? (remember, the piece, and the recording are P.D.)

Yamaha does this with Disklavier

[DigitalRaptor]

Yamaha has done this with their Disklavier player pianos, so that you can listen to an artists song as the artist actually played it.

It is neat to look at a nice grand piano playing, without anyone sitting at it, keys moving and everything, knowing that if Gershwin were here to play it himself, it would sound just the same.

That, personally, had far more of an impact than just hearing the same piano play the same song.

PKD "inventions"

[putko]

Here's some inventions of Philip K. Dick (via technovelgy.com).

The technology described by Philip is definitely not in this list; the article's submitter is either lazy or cleverly attempting to sneak the dupe past the editors via his absurd PKD reference.

Andy - an artificial human
Autofac (Nanorobots) - a factory that can replicate itself
Bubblehead - big-head brainiacs
Claws (Guard Robot)
Commuter Cooling Unit - portable air conditioning
Dr. Smile - psychiatrist in a suitcase
Electric Sheep - livestock as consumer electronics
Embryonic Robots - early scifi nanobots?
Empathy Box - TV for your emotional brain
Extra-Factual Memory - an implanted memory
Homeopape - news just you can use
Kipple - non-recycled paper.
Mood Organ - play your partner
Nanny - child-care robot with punch
Nexus-6 Brain Unit - meet my friend Roy
Penfield Wave Transmitter - an emotional brain remote control
Perky Pat Microworld - playset for grownups
Precrime Analytical Wing - precogs babble, machines tabulate
Replicant - an artificial human
Robot Cab Driver- everybody's got problems

Re:PKD "inventions"

[rookworm]

He wrote a story (``preserving machine'') about a mad scientist who turned old scores into animals in attempt to preserve the music. Unfortunately, the animals adapted, and when the process was reversed, they turned back into nonsensical cacophany.

Re:PKD "inventions"

[brw12]

The technology described by Philip is definitely not in this list; the article's submitter is ... lazy

>p>Actually, in PKD's book The Divine Invasion, there is an female musician who all of the lonely settlers of other planets love to listen to; she is secretly an AI program created to perfectly comfort through audio and video streams.

TFA is like this in that it involves connecting emotionally to music produced by AI.

How Glenn Gould played "live" again

[mav[LAG]]

Here is a pretty cool article on a similar project, but from the software development point of view.

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!