It is very impressive for a number of reasons, but I would challenge the naysayers on this thread... if you think it's so lousy and stupid, you build one.
Industrial automation came into maturity during the last century -- research is research. The current generation of musical robots and automated musical instruments is a fraction of what they WILL BE, because of research like this. They offer new avenues for musical expression and are giving creators new tools to work with -- which is a TOTALLY worthwhile pursuit.
"Only 13 percent of the professors surveyed said they used blogs in teaching; 12 percent had tried videoconferencing; and 13 percent gave interactive quizzes using 'clickers,' or TV-remotelike devices that let students respond and get feedback instantaneously."
Just a few thoughts...
I'm a music professor... and I'm the _music technology_ professor at that. I don't think any of these technologies are appropriate for music teaching -- that's why I don't use them. I do teach blogging in my intro class -- but I don't use a blog to communicate with the students. I think a lot of other faculty members feel the same way -- they don't know how to match up the technology with an appropriate use -- a common problem in universities. They want to invest in technology, but they end up buying the wrong things or implementing things poorly.
I like the course management systems, but I only use it for the gradebook and for handing out readings. Clickers are, IMHO, incredibly stupid. It only proves the students can push a button -- not articulate an intelligent answer. I suppose we could have guest speakers via videoconference... *shrug*.
If you want to experiment, i've had a lot of success fixing clipped recordings with iZotope RX, which includes not only the de-clipper, but a de-clicker and some pretty awesome noise reduction... i believe it works through vector analysis but i'm not sure.
IMHO, affixing some kind of rigid standard to spoken language is the lazy way -- computer code it not a good analogy. computer code has to be extremely semantically rigid so the machine can understand it.
on the other hand, i can generate an infinite number of novel sentences and you can understand them -- not to mention generate words that are not "in the dictionary" and you will understand them too. language is _constantly_ evolving and changing... anyone who says otherwise is the real product of bad english teaching.
it's so sad and cliché to lament the "declining state of our youth".
i'm a college professor too, and while bad writing is a problem, i think this is pretty sensationalized. students know not to put "cuz" in a paper, but they do it anyway because they don't understand the difference between formal/good writing and lousy/bad writing. maybe it does have something to do with grammar instruction, but i think it's more related to the fact that there are fewer and fewer situations where these kids have to use formal language -- so it gets deemphasized. but i assure you, they DO know how to use it. I've seen them meet our university president and boy does it come right out:)
anyway, yes i agree it's a result of bad instruction, but it just seems like they're looking at a number and going "these kids are dumb" and jumping to the conclusion that it's because they don't teach grammar anymore... i'm much more apt to blame it on the formulaic writing style they get taught to pass things like the FCAT.
yep -- it's true. i've been a T-mobile customer for a long time -- i've even got their $50/mo unlimited talk/text "customer loyalty" plan and i still pay more than someone with good credit who buys the $179 commitment. but who knows who's eligible for that... the site told me $229.
i think i'll pass for now. i would pay $179 and get into a 2-year contract (maybe), but first i want to go to the store and play with the phone... and i can't do that because you can only buy it on the web.
indeed, the corpus callosum does connect the two hemispheres -- but remember, not everything in the brain is "active" -- much of it is passive, and it's not just "excitatory" -- it's also inhibitory. a lot of the signals on one side do not get routed to the other, to use a computer term.
at the same time, remember that the left-brain/right-brain stuff is pop psychology. one simple scientific finding, that language is primarily left-lateralized, got turned into this gigantic thing that just isn't true or in any way demonstrable.
precisely my first thought when i read this post -- the auditory system works in "fields" much like the visual system - it's contralateral and ipsilateral.
who knows why the right ear thing gave them those results... seems rather shallow. would the same be true if we asked participants to close their left eye and look at a beer? how many of those beers would get consumed?:)
incidentally, the cigarette thing throws a whole other problem into the equation -- addiction and alcohol. if you ask someone at 7pm for a smoke, are they more or less likely to give one to you than at 1am when they've had 4+ drinks?
i think what you mean to say is, if people get better at programming computers to write music:)
the comments about granular synthesis are dead on... but really half right. there's a big difference between sound file granulation and granular _synthesis_ which uses chopped up simple waveforms.
john cage did this with magnetic tape... see "williams mix" for an example.
as a composer about to get a ph.d. in the subject, i think the cool part is the fact that creativity is much more accessible thanks to computers. people using something simple like GarageBand have to know very little, whereas writing something in CSound or Max/Msp requires a lot of knowledge. i'm all for it... and if this program makes people listen and pay attention to jazz, awesome.
guess we're just gonna have to agree to disagree, man.
you are speaking in analogies to try to define something that is, in itself, abstract. i actually prefer to tell my students that music is "sound organized in time", it's a much better definition.
by the same token i could tell you that language is a specific form of music, since they share certain features, but language communicates specific semantic concepts whereas music does not (in the absence of lyrics).
the difference between art and science is the difference between imagination and reason. if you want to listen to music and think about numbers, go ahead -- but not all music is like that, nor is it intended to be.
"Reason is the enumeration of quantities already known; Imagination is the perception of the value of those quantities, both seperately and as a whole. Reason respects the differences, and Imagination the similitudes of things. Reason is to Imagination as the instrument to the agent, as the body to the spirit, as the shadow to the substance." -Percy Shelley
Math is the language of reason, music is (one) language of imagination. They are compatible, sure. But I'd like to see a computer able to see beyond quantities and tell me the nature of the imagination behind a piece of music...
"Music is a communicative signal comprised of patterns whose performance and perception are governed by combinatorial rules, or a sort of musical grammar" -John Sloboda
that being said, music is not language either, and the brain is not a computer.
if you don't like algorithmic music, or atonal music, don't listen to it. and certainly don't rely on a computer to tell you what art you should absorb and experience...
and, i have to say, i appreciate the reverence for human composers, but mathematics has no bearing on my music apart from the incidental involvement of things like acoustics. to say otherwise is to turn the human composer into a mere algorithm machine.
i can tell genre, mood, composer/artist, and title by looking at the sheet music, and i can probably do it faster than a computer.
this isn't analysis, it's cataloging based on surface features. if we're talking about popular music, is the computer going to do text recognition on the lyrics so when i feel sad i can ask for a song about somebody that has it worse than me?
seems a bit shallow to me. it won't change the fact that despite the surface features, there is good music and bad music. i'd like to see a computer make an aesthetic judgement like that.
sorry to be bitter, it's just the two music degrees talking:)
TMS is an increasingly useful technique in lesion studies... the lab i'm working in right now is using aphasics and dementia patients to study semantic memory... but with TMS you don't have to use (victimize?) people with brain damage... in many ways it's more ethical and potentially easier since you can use undergraduates:)
btw, broca's area doesn't "control" speech -- it is an area that is involved in language, but it's not the end-all of language production.
people with damage to broca's area typically have trouble generating expressive speech. they can't find words, there's very little articulation, and they can't really elaborate on things... but, they can still understand (usually) what is being said to them.
the other classic aphasia is Wernicke's aphasia... contrast the two on youtube:
there is no single part of the brain that "controls" speech -- the brain is not constructed like a computer... or at least, any computer that humans can build in 2008...:)
this is a bunch of hooey. allow me to apply the same points to being a music major:
5. Awful Textbooks Music theory textbooks teach you prototypical constructions that don't actually apply in the real world. Therefore, doing the exercises in the book exposes you to plain vanilla, uninteresting, contrived musical examples that have no bearing on reality.
4. Professors are Rarely Encouraging At the end of every semester, music majors have to perform a "jury" for a group of faculty members. These people frequently forget that students can't be expected to perform at the same level as they do -- most of them are accomplished musicians with doctoral degrees in performance or musicology. They love to tell you how terrible you are and point out your deficiencies.
3. Dearth of Quality Counseling Most music programs don't offer career counseling either. Academic musicians hate popular music, so viable careers in the music industry are never discussed. Anyone who has become a successful musicians has no time to go back into the baby university programs and tell us how to get out of being a piano teacher for 3-year olds for the rest of our lives.
2. Other Disciplines Have Inflated Grades Engineering students who can't speak english get amazing grades but can't write a paper to save their lives. We have to write 15-page papers on the influence of Beethoven on the ensuing generations, and all they have to do is play around with their multimeters all day. The guys on the basketball team get to take Music Appreciation and get A's in Criminal Justice, and we have to do 12-tone serialism assignments.
1. Every Assignment Feels the Same Nearly every homework assignment and test question is a music problem. Only a few courses require creativity or offer hands-on experience.
Anyway, most of that is tongue-in-cheek, at least from me. For one single reason: i liked being a music major. Yeah, there are things that suck about being a STUDENT, but if you enter into a college program and you're not prepared to "live the life", you shouldn't go into that program. If you think life as an engineering major sucks, try being a medical sciences major, or psych, or journalism, or anything.
What a bunch of whiners. Are these the people I want designing the laptop i'm gonna buy in 15 years? Do your fsckin' job and stop trying to turn your education into a 4-year post-adolescent playgroup.
i don't worry about kids losing their innocence on myspace... i just worry they'll learn poor design skills and bad programming principles, and will simply stop working every 20 minutes or so. that can't be productive for a future economy that has to be built on a service-based, technology-dependent workforce!
i don't think this is a matter of demonizing computer games... i don't think there's a soul out there who hasn't picked up a controller at some point and played a 2-person fighter against a friend, your dad, uncle, sibling, whatever...
i've always hated GTA specifically for the things that it rewards players for. i watch my brother play it, and he smiles as he throws the driver out of the car, blasts him with an automatic weapon, and proceeds to run over a nun standing on the side of the street. i understand that it's a fantasy, and i think he does too, but there are people in the world who cannot separate the fantasy world of a game and real life.
what's more important is that the games PROMOTE violence and make KIDS think it's acceptable. you can do this with movies too... the bottom line is that it's about teaching your children what's right and what's wrong. and i'm sure most people will agree that there are a lot of parents out there who don't do this. buy 'em an X-Box, and they'll shut up for a while. i do think you should have to be a certain age to buy those games. porn distortes your view of sexuality if you looked at it, say, when you were 8... when you can't understand the "porn fantasy".
CSI isn't the epitome of a tv series commenting on our culture, but give it a chance. maybe it'll be good... at the very least, we can hope they address the free speech issues and comment that the violence is unacceptable while playing games is not.
the cynical answer to this is that apple will let the open source community write it first, and then include it in the operating system (konfabulator, launchbar, etc.etc.)... but, i'm a mac guy, so i can't really say that.
probably the truth is that you don't need on-chip 3-D audio algorithms. the CPU is fast enough to do this and still have the horsepower for whatever else you want... just take a look at the ambisonics equations for 3D sound placement...
problem being, in order for this to work, you have to have your loudspeakers in the exact correct place. i've been in dozens of people's houses with 5.1 setups that are completely wrong. until the computer can know the exact position of the speakers surrounding the listener, none of this will REALLY be possible (beyond maybe a "gee-whiz" factor). but, people will continue to believe it because they spent $1000 on a 7.1 system and a bunch of SACDs...
true, but you don't need more speakers to have more percieve-able directions. with delay and minor EQ changes you can produce a surround effect with a pair of headphones...
Slashdot Mirror
It is very impressive for a number of reasons, but I would challenge the naysayers on this thread... if you think it's so lousy and stupid, you build one.
Industrial automation came into maturity during the last century -- research is research. The current generation of musical robots and automated musical instruments is a fraction of what they WILL BE, because of research like this. They offer new avenues for musical expression and are giving creators new tools to work with -- which is a TOTALLY worthwhile pursuit.
"Only 13 percent of the professors surveyed said they used blogs in teaching; 12 percent had tried videoconferencing; and 13 percent gave interactive quizzes using 'clickers,' or TV-remotelike devices that let students respond and get feedback instantaneously."
Just a few thoughts...
I'm a music professor... and I'm the _music technology_ professor at that. I don't think any of these technologies are appropriate for music teaching -- that's why I don't use them. I do teach blogging in my intro class -- but I don't use a blog to communicate with the students. I think a lot of other faculty members feel the same way -- they don't know how to match up the technology with an appropriate use -- a common problem in universities. They want to invest in technology, but they end up buying the wrong things or implementing things poorly.
I like the course management systems, but I only use it for the gradebook and for handing out readings. Clickers are, IMHO, incredibly stupid. It only proves the students can push a button -- not articulate an intelligent answer. I suppose we could have guest speakers via videoconference... *shrug*.
If anyone has suggestions, I'm all ears!
If you want to experiment, i've had a lot of success fixing clipped recordings with iZotope RX, which includes not only the de-clipper, but a de-clicker and some pretty awesome noise reduction... i believe it works through vector analysis but i'm not sure.
(just a satisfied user, btw!)
true true... and i would argue that text message lingo is more akin to spoken than written. clearly the kiddies are not being taught the difference.
IMHO, affixing some kind of rigid standard to spoken language is the lazy way -- computer code it not a good analogy. computer code has to be extremely semantically rigid so the machine can understand it.
on the other hand, i can generate an infinite number of novel sentences and you can understand them -- not to mention generate words that are not "in the dictionary" and you will understand them too. language is _constantly_ evolving and changing... anyone who says otherwise is the real product of bad english teaching.
if we don't need the same level of complexity, language will devolve naturally.
chimps and dolphins have gotten along OK without it....
it's so sad and cliché to lament the "declining state of our youth".
i'm a college professor too, and while bad writing is a problem, i think this is pretty sensationalized. students know not to put "cuz" in a paper, but they do it anyway because they don't understand the difference between formal/good writing and lousy/bad writing. maybe it does have something to do with grammar instruction, but i think it's more related to the fact that there are fewer and fewer situations where these kids have to use formal language -- so it gets deemphasized. but i assure you, they DO know how to use it. I've seen them meet our university president and boy does it come right out :)
anyway, yes i agree it's a result of bad instruction, but it just seems like they're looking at a number and going "these kids are dumb" and jumping to the conclusion that it's because they don't teach grammar anymore... i'm much more apt to blame it on the formulaic writing style they get taught to pass things like the FCAT.
yep -- it's true. i've been a T-mobile customer for a long time -- i've even got their $50/mo unlimited talk/text "customer loyalty" plan and i still pay more than someone with good credit who buys the $179 commitment. but who knows who's eligible for that... the site told me $229.
i think i'll pass for now. i would pay $179 and get into a 2-year contract (maybe), but first i want to go to the store and play with the phone... and i can't do that because you can only buy it on the web.
indeed, the corpus callosum does connect the two hemispheres -- but remember, not everything in the brain is "active" -- much of it is passive, and it's not just "excitatory" -- it's also inhibitory. a lot of the signals on one side do not get routed to the other, to use a computer term.
at the same time, remember that the left-brain/right-brain stuff is pop psychology. one simple scientific finding, that language is primarily left-lateralized, got turned into this gigantic thing that just isn't true or in any way demonstrable.
precisely my first thought when i read this post -- the auditory system works in "fields" much like the visual system - it's contralateral and ipsilateral.
who knows why the right ear thing gave them those results... seems rather shallow. would the same be true if we asked participants to close their left eye and look at a beer? how many of those beers would get consumed? :)
incidentally, the cigarette thing throws a whole other problem into the equation -- addiction and alcohol. if you ask someone at 7pm for a smoke, are they more or less likely to give one to you than at 1am when they've had 4+ drinks?
guess i'll have to read the study! :)
-m
i had a great time as a senior in high school when my physics teacher taught us the "monkey gun":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxvsHNRXLjw
You mean John Cage. John Cale is a member of the Velvet Underground.
i think what you mean to say is, if people get better at programming computers to write music :)
the comments about granular synthesis are dead on... but really half right. there's a big difference between sound file granulation and granular _synthesis_ which uses chopped up simple waveforms.
john cage did this with magnetic tape... see "williams mix" for an example.
as a composer about to get a ph.d. in the subject, i think the cool part is the fact that creativity is much more accessible thanks to computers. people using something simple like GarageBand have to know very little, whereas writing something in CSound or Max/Msp requires a lot of knowledge. i'm all for it... and if this program makes people listen and pay attention to jazz, awesome.
guess we're just gonna have to agree to disagree, man.
you are speaking in analogies to try to define something that is, in itself, abstract. i actually prefer to tell my students that music is "sound organized in time", it's a much better definition.
by the same token i could tell you that language is a specific form of music, since they share certain features, but language communicates specific semantic concepts whereas music does not (in the absence of lyrics).
the difference between art and science is the difference between imagination and reason. if you want to listen to music and think about numbers, go ahead -- but not all music is like that, nor is it intended to be.
"Reason is the enumeration of quantities already known; Imagination is the perception of the value of those quantities, both seperately and as a whole. Reason respects the differences, and Imagination the similitudes of things. Reason is to Imagination as the instrument to the agent, as the body to the spirit, as the shadow to the substance." -Percy Shelley
Math is the language of reason, music is (one) language of imagination. They are compatible, sure. But I'd like to see a computer able to see beyond quantities and tell me the nature of the imagination behind a piece of music...
music is not math, man. sorry.
"Music is a communicative signal
comprised of patterns whose
performance and perception are
governed by combinatorial rules, or
a sort of musical grammar" -John Sloboda
that being said, music is not language either, and the brain is not a computer.
if you don't like algorithmic music, or atonal music, don't listen to it. and certainly don't rely on a computer to tell you what art you should absorb and experience...
and, i have to say, i appreciate the reverence for human composers, but mathematics has no bearing on my music apart from the incidental involvement of things like acoustics. to say otherwise is to turn the human composer into a mere algorithm machine.
i can tell genre, mood, composer/artist, and title by looking at the sheet music, and i can probably do it faster than a computer.
this isn't analysis, it's cataloging based on surface features. if we're talking about popular music, is the computer going to do text recognition on the lyrics so when i feel sad i can ask for a song about somebody that has it worse than me?
seems a bit shallow to me. it won't change the fact that despite the surface features, there is good music and bad music. i'd like to see a computer make an aesthetic judgement like that.
sorry to be bitter, it's just the two music degrees talking :)
hi everyone,
:)
:)
TMS is an increasingly useful technique in lesion studies... the lab i'm working in right now is using aphasics and dementia patients to study semantic memory... but with TMS you don't have to use (victimize?) people with brain damage... in many ways it's more ethical and potentially easier since you can use undergraduates
btw, broca's area doesn't "control" speech -- it is an area that is involved in language, but it's not the end-all of language production.
people with damage to broca's area typically have trouble generating expressive speech. they can't find words, there's very little articulation, and they can't really elaborate on things... but, they can still understand (usually) what is being said to them.
the other classic aphasia is Wernicke's aphasia... contrast the two on youtube:
Broca: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2IiMEbMnPM
Wernicke:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVhYN7NTIKU
there is no single part of the brain that "controls" speech -- the brain is not constructed like a computer... or at least, any computer that humans can build in 2008...
-m
this is a bunch of hooey. allow me to apply the same points to being a music major:
5. Awful Textbooks
Music theory textbooks teach you prototypical constructions that don't actually apply in the real world. Therefore, doing the exercises in the book exposes you to plain vanilla, uninteresting, contrived musical examples that have no bearing on reality.
4. Professors are Rarely Encouraging
At the end of every semester, music majors have to perform a "jury" for a group of faculty members. These people frequently forget that students can't be expected to perform at the same level as they do -- most of them are accomplished musicians with doctoral degrees in performance or musicology. They love to tell you how terrible you are and point out your deficiencies.
3. Dearth of Quality Counseling
Most music programs don't offer career counseling either. Academic musicians hate popular music, so viable careers in the music industry are never discussed. Anyone who has become a successful musicians has no time to go back into the baby university programs and tell us how to get out of being a piano teacher for 3-year olds for the rest of our lives.
2. Other Disciplines Have Inflated Grades
Engineering students who can't speak english get amazing grades but can't write a paper to save their lives. We have to write 15-page papers on the influence of Beethoven on the ensuing generations, and all they have to do is play around with their multimeters all day. The guys on the basketball team get to take Music Appreciation and get A's in Criminal Justice, and we have to do 12-tone serialism assignments.
1. Every Assignment Feels the Same
Nearly every homework assignment and test question is a music problem. Only a few courses require creativity or offer hands-on experience.
Anyway, most of that is tongue-in-cheek, at least from me. For one single reason: i liked being a music major. Yeah, there are things that suck about being a STUDENT, but if you enter into a college program and you're not prepared to "live the life", you shouldn't go into that program. If you think life as an engineering major sucks, try being a medical sciences major, or psych, or journalism, or anything.
What a bunch of whiners. Are these the people I want designing the laptop i'm gonna buy in 15 years? Do your fsckin' job and stop trying to turn your education into a 4-year post-adolescent playgroup.
What's this software called? SickPeopleSoft? :)
i don't worry about kids losing their innocence on myspace... i just worry they'll learn poor design skills and bad programming principles, and will simply stop working every 20 minutes or so. that can't be productive for a future economy that has to be built on a service-based, technology-dependent workforce!
...since no one's written a truly new story in like five thousand years.
i thought Brokeback Mountain was fiercely original.
but yeah, i'd rather read crappy source code. i'm gonna cancel my subscription to Penthouse Forum and get like, Dr. Dobbs' Journal instead.
i don't think this is a matter of demonizing computer games... i don't think there's a soul out there who hasn't picked up a controller at some point and played a 2-person fighter against a friend, your dad, uncle, sibling, whatever...
i've always hated GTA specifically for the things that it rewards players for. i watch my brother play it, and he smiles as he throws the driver out of the car, blasts him with an automatic weapon, and proceeds to run over a nun standing on the side of the street. i understand that it's a fantasy, and i think he does too, but there are people in the world who cannot separate the fantasy world of a game and real life.
what's more important is that the games PROMOTE violence and make KIDS think it's acceptable. you can do this with movies too... the bottom line is that it's about teaching your children what's right and what's wrong. and i'm sure most people will agree that there are a lot of parents out there who don't do this. buy 'em an X-Box, and they'll shut up for a while. i do think you should have to be a certain age to buy those games. porn distortes your view of sexuality if you looked at it, say, when you were 8... when you can't understand the "porn fantasy".
CSI isn't the epitome of a tv series commenting on our culture, but give it a chance. maybe it'll be good... at the very least, we can hope they address the free speech issues and comment that the violence is unacceptable while playing games is not.
the cynical answer to this is that apple will let the open source community write it first, and then include it in the operating system (konfabulator, launchbar, etc.etc.)... but, i'm a mac guy, so i can't really say that.
probably the truth is that you don't need on-chip 3-D audio algorithms. the CPU is fast enough to do this and still have the horsepower for whatever else you want... just take a look at the ambisonics equations for 3D sound placement...
problem being, in order for this to work, you have to have your loudspeakers in the exact correct place. i've been in dozens of people's houses with 5.1 setups that are completely wrong. until the computer can know the exact position of the speakers surrounding the listener, none of this will REALLY be possible (beyond maybe a "gee-whiz" factor). but, people will continue to believe it because they spent $1000 on a 7.1 system and a bunch of SACDs...
aah... the joys of the american education system.
mom can't even spell "Principal".
still though, the principal doesn't seem to have very well-thought out principles.
true, but you don't need more speakers to have more percieve-able directions. with delay and minor EQ changes you can produce a surround effect with a pair of headphones...
check out some of the articles on ambisonic.net.