Monday, October 31, 2011

Computer Generated Sounds as Music

In a paper that I wrote recently, I argued that we should not consider computer generated sounds as music because they lack artistic intention, at least when the sounds are created purely artificially and lack substantive human input. I realize that there are vague terms here, such as "substantive". At what point is there enough human input that we can consider computer generated sound music? That was a question that I could not answer thoroughly. However, I believe I should change "we should not consider [it] music" to "we should not consider it music as a fine art" because of the proposed idea that it is on a continuum. Perhaps because there is always some level of human input, such as requiring humans to build the computer and make the programs. I would still rate it very low, however. As I stated in class, I think that just programming the rules of music theory and a few common examples into a writing program and calling the output music is doing a disservice to Hamilton's theory of, "requires skill or craft". However, as there is always the minimal human input required to make such "music" exist, it would still fit our author's theory, so I would then have to just place it very low on the scale of what defines "skill or craft".

Do you feel computer generated sounds should or should not count as music, or perhaps that there is more to the argument than that?

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