Humans Vs. Machines

Johngalt and Beefybeef inspired this one, thought I'd be nice and give them a thread of their own

and here's my input on the subject

Does your computer cry? does is feel pain?

OF COURSE NOT! IT'S A COMPUTER, A MACHINE, IT HAS NO EMOTIONS!

people are not machines, no matter what you say, a computer might be able to play an impossible piece, but that's because it's a computer.

Humans have feelings that they can channel into the music, a computer cannot, and it's us humans that feel those feelings and react.

John or Beef, one of you guys can start

I agree...though one could get into such Matrix-like debates on the nature of human emotion, since all signals emitted from our brain are eletrical impulses and all that. They possibly could, in time, be studied and recreated in an advanced machine, who could then possibly even "create" art. But that's rather sci-fi for now, and machines today just do as we tell them.

One could also argue that if samples are used, there is an actual person playing a real instrument behind those samples, so that there is at least some sentiment of reality and humanity in the music...however, I don't think this stands well because the person playing the samples to be recorded could simply be thinking "this is just another gig, another job, playing and recording note by note," whereas those samples could be processed into a piece that is supposed to relay some sort of emotional response completely different from that.

So in essense, I think that music mixed with elaborate sampling software and hardware is still music mixed in a machine, and it cannot yet understand the intricacies and unpredictability of human emotion and spontaneous interpretation. After all, you could feed a machine all the jazz theory in the world to make it improv a solo, but that doesn't make it Miles Davis.

Humans can not put real emotion or thought into music and that is the basis of music.

Humans can not put real emotion or thought into music and that is the basis of music.

Um...if humans can't do it, then who or what can?

you know. all this talk about emotion. i just realized: what in bloody hell does emotion have to do with anything? emotion has nothing to do with the playing of the music. what emotion does affect is the actual music itself. besides. how is crying going to help you play an instrument differently than being happy. maybe you'll make more mistakes when you're sad or depressed. but that's about it. your emotions can change the key of the music, the speed of the music, the type of music, the genre of music, the whole composition. but it's not going to change how you play the instrument.

you know. all this talk about emotion. i just realized: what in bloody hell does emotion have to do with anything? emotion has nothing to do with the playing of the music. what emotion does affect is the actual music itself. besides. how is crying going to help you play an instrument differently than being happy. maybe you'll make more mistakes when you're sad or depressed. but that's about it. your emotions can change the key of the music, the speed of the music, the type of music, the genre of music, the whole composition. but it's not going to change how you play the instrument.

Emotion makes or breaks the piece in a lot of cases. Try playing the famous piano works as mechanicly as possible. Emotion makes a very large difference in how you play the instrument, and how the piece sounds. Sorry, but it sounds like you're very misinformed on this subject.

Humans > Machines, no question, no debate.

mechanically and emotionally aren't on the opposite ends of the same meter. mechanically and dynamically are on the same meter. but not emotionally. it's either HAVE emotion, or DON'T HAVE Emotion.

computers can play a piece dynamically but it doesn't have emotions. then again, like i said. emotion has squat to do with the playback of the music. if you associate dynamics with emoition, then you shouldn't be a musician.

mechanically and emotionally aren't on the opposite ends of the same meter. mechanically and dynamically are on the same meter. but not emotionally. it's either HAVE emotion, or DON'T HAVE Emotion.

computers can play a piece dynamically but it doesn't have emotions. then again, like i said. emotion has squat to do with the playback of the music. if you associate dynamics with emoition, then you shouldn't be a musician.

Never said they were, but there is a big difference between playing with great emotion, and playing just notes.

I feel sorry for you. You seem so terribly misinformed.

I'm neither of the two, but not too long ago we had a very long and rediculous argument about this.

I agree that a computer can only do what it's told to do. A human being has the ability to do MORE.

All a computer is is a tool. If you tell it to play rubato, or tell it to play a little quiet here and there, it WILL do as you tell it - that is, as long as the guy who programs it knows what he's doing.

The thing is, a lot of us are too lazy to finetune a computer's performance. That's why when we play things back on the computer, it often sounds very flat and dead. But with a human being, he can use his own intuition to determine, say, how much pressure he should put down on such and such a key.

All that a computer is is a really complicated instrument. Personally, I've always prefered natural acoustic instruments over synthesizers every day, no matter what the reason, but if I need to make a demo track for something, such as incidental music for a play that the actors need rehearsing with, I use synthesizers off a computer. However, for performance purposes, I use real musicians. It's the spontaneity I suppose that endears me towards real human musicians, and how they are always in the moment, and it is therefore much more organic. In fact, there is no comparison between human performers and computers when it comes to being organic :D

Synthesized music CAN GIVE THE IMPRESSION of being performed by real human beings, but that would mean that the programmer/composer would have to spend HOURS on every single bar, dabbling in midi messages and what not, otherwise, it will sound dead. But a real human being is not as rational as a computer. He doesn't know percentagewise to the decimal how loud his violin is, or how brief is pizzicato is. He just feels it.

And therefore, music is all about feeling as far as I know, and I conclude that a human being is a far better musician than a computer.

Now, if the human being is actually PLAYING the synthesizer, like a keyboard, then its perfomance is also judged by the peculiar in-the-moment nuances of a human being.

When it comes to a live performance, I don't want to go see a computer play music. I want to see PEOPLE play music. Because music is supposed to communicate between the performer and the musician. The performer is transmitting the message of the composer, through the performer's personal dialect, and the audience must understand it. Through using canned music in a live performance, it's like getting a prerecorded survey phonecall.

I've personally learned, especially from this website, people saying music sounds "video gamey" when it's not necessarily supposed to be. Which is kind of funny, considering that most of the music on this website is created through a computer :) A lot of pieces, particularly atonal ones, or those with complex harmonies are bashed, not because the composer sucks, but because the computer's performance sucks. Because a computer lacks the intuition on how to make a composition come to life.

I'll try to make this analogy, and I think it's pretty good, I might add. Take a play by Shakespeare, and read it out loud to yourself. Now, type a play by Shakespeare onto Microsoft Word, that has some computer voice program, and have it read it back, in it's monotonous voice. See what I'm getting at? If you had the training and the skill, you could make the computer's inflections sound a bit more interesting, but it's just so nuanced and tricky and time consuming, that it just makes you look back in wonder at just how complicated OUR human capabilities at telling stories truly are. And that is why I am 100% behind the Human Race.

And that's that.

And Beefybeef, with all due respect sir... what does emotion have to do with performance? Um, hello, sir, what planet are you from? Like, that's the most bizarre comment I've ever heard. Of course you associate dynamics with emotion! How you feel depends on how you play. If you're happy, your sound will sound happy. If you're sad, your sound will sound sad. Well, that's how I do it. Am I not a musician?

I remember hearing Wynton Marsalis' performance of the typically upbeat "Down By the Waterside" following Hurricane Katrina. That just blows your theory clear out of the water - pardon the pun.

Never said they were, but there is a big difference between playing with great emotion, and playing just notes.

I feel sorry for you. You seem so terribly misinformed.

see now we're back to square one. the computer doesn't just play the notes. that's what the midi controllers are for.

"Pssst. Ridiculous."

I agree with what you said, monkey.

One word for you Tamber. It is impossible for a computer to incorporate tamber into the music.

And Beefybeef, with all due respect sir... what does emotion have to do with performance? Um, hello, sir, what planet are you from? Like, that's the most bizarre comment I've ever heard. Of course you associate dynamics with emotion! How you feel depends on how you play. If you're happy, your sound will sound happy. If you're sad, your sound will sound sad. Well, that's how I do it. Am I not a musician?

hi. i'm from earth. where are you from?

if the piece was meant to be happy and you happened to be pissed off that day. but you let your emotions get in the way and play the piece all fucked up. then i'd say you're a pretty lousy musician.

One word for you Tamber. It is impossible for a computer to incorporate tamber into the music.

Not if you've sampled an instrument at different timbres (note the spelling).

hi. i'm from earth. where are you from?

if the piece was meant to be happy and you happened to be pissed off that day. but you let your emotions get in the way and play the piece all fucked up. then i'd say you're a pretty lousy musician.

If you do that, you don't need to be breathing. Musical emotion is dictated by, ZOMG, THE MUSIC! Who woulda thunk it?

If you do that, you don't need to be breathing. Musical emotion is dictated by, ZOMG, THE MUSIC! Who woulda thunk it?

proves my point doesn't it? if you the musical emotion is dictated by the music, then it's not the player that changes the music. it's the composers who decides to write that music.

If you were feeling happy, you'd probably be playing happy music.

Are you talking about live performances?

If so, then it is your job to dig up those particular emotions that fit the song. Anybody can do that. How many times have I been sad, and once I started playing a happy song, it lifted my spirits and I'd play happily

TAMBER! (musicman, one who does not give a rat's donkey on how to spell sometimes.)

proves my point doesn't it? if you the musical emotion is dictated by the music, then it's not the player that changes the music. it's the composers who decides to write that music.

Not necessarily. In fact, rarely does the composer have the most emotional interpretation.

Even a Shakespeare play can be really bad. About fifteen years ago, Kiannu Reeves did Hamlet in Winnipeg. It's definitely not just up to the composer to make his music heard. He writes the story, but doesn't tell the story

If you were feeling happy, you'd probably be playing happy music.

Are you talking about live performances?

If so, then it is your job to dig up those particular emotions that fit the song. Anybody can do that. How many times have I been sad, and once I started playing a happy song, it lifted my spirits and I'd play happily

you're not making a point here, either. you're saying the music affects the emotion. not the other way around.

Even a Shakespeare play can be really bad. About fifteen years ago, Kiannu Reeves did Hamlet in Winnipeg. It's definitely not just up to the composer to make his music heard. He writes the story, but doesn't tell the story

okay. with the comment about microsoft word and shakespeare. that i totally agree with you. human words, human voices are completely affected by emotion. but it's not the same for music.

okay. with the comment about microsoft word and shakespeare. that i totally agree with you. human words, human voices are completely affected by emotion. but it's not the same for music.

Wrong. Good human playing is completely effected by emotion.

TAMBER! (musicman, one who does not give a rat's donkey on how to spell sometimes.)

uh musicman, i'm pretty sure it's timbre alright.

oh nevermind.

but it does! Just listen to two different recordings of Rhapsody in Blue by Gershwin. Each orchestra has their own particular nuances, and that's what makes it sound special. I've heard midi renderings of it, and although it sounds technically complicated, I just didn't get any feeling from it.

A human performer has the ability to RELATE with his (or her) audience. Yes, Bach sounds great on Garritan or whatever, but if you were to listen to Glenn Gould's rendition of Bach, you get so much more than mere numbers and binary.

I relate a lot better to a human telling me a story than a machine.

Beefybeef, do you actually prefer computer performance over human performance?