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Broadway Musicians Replaced With Synthesizers
wooferhound writes "Sophisticated synthesizers and computer-manipulated recordings are increasingly taking over orchestras. Sounding almost like real players, while costing much less, they're especially popular with provincial or touring companies. But until mid-July — when 'West Side Story's' producers announced that a synthesizer was replacing three live violinists and two cellists, or half the orchestra's string section — staff violinist Paul Woodiel thought that at least the classics would be immune to the trend. There are computer programs able to read and play back music scores — a boon to composers who can now hear their work as they write — and software allowing conductors to control the tempo of the machine, in the same way that they direct live players."
What is the issue here?
We automate lots of other work, why not this?
Oh noes, someone is no longer going to be doing a repetitive job better done by a machine, truly the end of the world.
Why where they not already using recordings was my first question when I saw this article.
What would be the difference between having a synth play this live, or simply a recording of a synth playing during a live performance? The one question I would ask is: Did replacing actual musicians make the ticket prices go down?
A: Probably not. Profits will be up though!
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
The media industry makes so much noise about what they call "piracy" supposedly causing artists to starve, how can they allow this automation to happen?
After all, a live performance is much harder to "steal". The only way I can imagine of doing it would be drilling holes in the theater wall to let people watch from the outside without paying.
Automating musicians' jobs takes away one sure way they have to earn a living.
Stop going to that crap. Go to a bar and see a regular band. I would rather we have many bands made of folks who make only middle class incomes than our current system.
Cuing a computer as a conductor is creative work, while playing an instrument is drudgery? You are so far away from any sort of artistic reality it's difficult to think you are anything other than a troll. Chances are (supported by other comments here) that you haven't paid for any live performance of any kind in the last 10 years, which does devalue your thoughts somewhat.
Example: J.S. Bach didn't hide from the newly invented piano and cry "Ach, mein Gott, give me mein harpsichord and save me from the barbarian pianoforte". No, Bach took the piano and made it his bitch. Ditto for Telemann and the keyed flute.
And remember, electronic instruments have been part of classical music since the 1930's and Edgard Varèse.
If you want to hold back the evolution of musical instruments, then you might as well throw away your violin and go back to banging sticks and stones together.
The Vienna Symphony Library is available today and can essentially replace an orchestra to all but the most discerning of ears. Here is an example of the E.T. theme. There are a couple of parts where I can tell it's a bit artificial sounding if I really listen, but it's approaching the flawless threshold.
That said, there is a particular order of ease of simulation: percussion (including piano), strings, brass and woodwinds. The latter two are notoriously difficult to emulate because they are so closely tied to non-discrete complex forms of movement of the mouth (articulation). For example, see this demo of one of the betters saxophone emulators - still something missing even to uneducated ears, but not too bad in a mix. Strings can also be difficult to emulate, but if apps from companies like Prominy are coming out, guitars and violins, this is getting scary.
There are a couple of serious implications of this. First and foremost is what the value of a live performance is with and without musicians, which the linked article addresses. The second is decreasing numbers of people willing to learn these instruments. For a lot of folks who compose for small-budget TV and movies and can't afford musicians, it's a great way to go. Nevertheless, it's the same cautionary tale as the decline in handwriting that coincided with the rise of computers with keyboards. You can't replace handwriting in a lot of circumstances.
Not true, I tend to go to the local theater pretty often. Last thing I saw was Wicked. I really loved spamalot went to that 3 times. I also enjoy going out to see local bands. Playing an instrument is not drudgery, playing the background for a musical is.
I like to toy around with music in my free time. I'm not very good, I'll never be able to make a career out of it, nor would I even want to. I want to hear what I mess with, and want to hear it as though good musicians were doing it. Problem is that being nothing but a hobbyist, I can't really afford to go hiring out a symphony. What to do?
Buy EastWest samples, that's what. For several hundred dollars, my computer can give sound that is pretty damn close to real players. Now I can have fun at home, and it is something I can afford to do. What's more, if I had the skill to make something that people wanted, I could do so, record it (or more correctly bounce it down to two tracks) and distribute it. I could produce from my home, needing nothing but my system.
Stuff like this, quality samples, cheap HD cameras, good 3D software, etc are great equalizers in terms of media production. You don't have to be well funded, backed by major players to create something high quality. You can be some guy, or a few friends, with a little bit of money and a lot of talent and can create something for everyone to enjoy.
This means more folks will get to do creative work, writing and conducting and less the drudgery.
Nope, this doesn't create more needs for writing and conducting, it just reduces the need for performers. None of those performers will see job openings for robo-conductors with instrument-performing experience. And the creative and conducting types are next in line for automated obsolescence.
There's repetitive drudgery that people insist on doing regularly: Eating, paying rent, etc. They'd rather keep their repetitive jobs to go along with it.
You can't take the sky from me...
AHHHH OH MY GOD WHAT THE EFF IS WRONG WITH YOU??
PLAYING MUSIC I S N O T D R U D G E R Y ! ! ! ! it is the polar opposite. calling what a musician does drudgery is like accusing a camper, at the end of a long day, of wasting and just squandering energy, heat, and light, by making a campfire.
you think talented people dedicate their lives to a grueling, low-paying profession because it is dull and drudgerous.
Playing music, especially in an ensemble, and especially at the level of a broadway show (which is pretty good) is, if anything, ecstatic. sensual. i don't know what else to call you except painfully ignorant or a curled-up philistine who's never made love in their life.
I knew everyone on slashdot was a virgin. I didn't know that meant they've apparently never listened to The Beatles, to any sort of music at all, never once applied those supposed techie brains to the elementary chain of logic which must irrefutably deduce that it is fun to play music, and probably are so dead to pleasure of any sort that they eat matrix-gruel (or even worse, mcdonalds - it fools you into thinking its good - the food matrix itself) for every meal.