Artificial Intelligence gains ground every year, now and can do some things better than humans, even when this wasn’t thought possible. They’re far better than humans at Chess, for example; now used by even the best players to check on their moves.
Despite all this, I don’t think computers will ever produce art in the same way that we do. Music – all art, really – is something special, conveying the very essence of the human condition.
The video above is a recent rendition of Bach’s BWV974 Concerto in D Minor, Adagio. Spotify has 100s of different versions of the exact same piece, and each player interprets it in a slightly different way. Some interpret it in a very different way. I happen to like Ólafsson’s version the very best of all. I can’t quite tell you why – I’d be committing the same mistake that the computer is about to make, below: of attempting to quantify the sublime.
Here’s a computer version I recorded playing that same, wonderful transcription, but with little of the soul:
A computer is a wonderful tool for making music – especially my kind of music. But it is not the composer, not the conductor, and certainly not the musician. A computer is merely an instrument.
Recent Comments