The holy grail of notation programs!

Jazz is always a whole diferent kettle of fish. :P

I agree with what Mike says - given a score and recordings of that score by different musicians, a library of "performer nuances" could be built up and then added to the playback of software like Finale or Sibelius.

There is a problem in naming these nuances - a problem already encountered by wine tasters who have had to develop and standardize a new vocabulary. Think of it - if Finale listed several hundred playback nuances, and you could click on a new menu to select one just as you now can select a fermata or staccato, it would be both powerful and cumbersome. So probably some type of AI program would be needed to assist the "composer".

Once the analysis of music gets going, why stop at just performance nuances? A further step is just to ask the computer to write a symphony in A minor with 40% the style of Sibelius and 60% the style of Berlioz with a series of options presented for the details.

I can see music in the future dividing into two forms: one akin to TV dinners (the computer AI generated variety), and one akin to home cooking (composed by a human with limited computer assistance).

I wonder if a generation raised on mp3 quality sound will care about nuances?

You know, I didn't have to read any of this tread to know my answer-

While it may someday become possible to replicate the sounds and playback of a real player, it will never be quite the same as hearing music live. There are some things that may take many years to replicate perfectly- such as the many countless details of the sound of the performance, or they might be discovered tomorrow. I don't know, and I can't predict that kind of thing.

The one thing a computer will never be able to replicate is the thrill of watching performances live. It's nice to hear a recording of a good player, but I find that I get really excited when I go see and hear live music by a good performer. No computer technology could replicate that. None. And don't tell me that it may be possible, because even if it happens, it will never be satisfactory. :cool: Besides, concert-goers in both Classical music and rock and pop music and ALL types of music aren't just going to STOP GOING- There's that thrill of seeing that band/orchestra that you love to listen to that is indistinguishable by technology.

EDIT: Now that I have read a bit of the thread, it sounds to me that you guys are thinking up ideas of things that I would categorize under the movie War Games- computers that could store all kinds of different things, and could learn more of them! Can you say-

Would you like to play a game? :O :D :P

You bring up some pretty good points. Thanks Alan :happy:. You're right about that real performance, thing, though, with real people. That's something that computers can never have, unless they trick us. But then it isn't real ;).