Did Shakira actually sing live at the concert that took place a while ago in Rio? Judging by the (minor) commotion on social media, many believed that this was not the case. But what does “live” mean today? The information we find in AI tells us that in her performances, Shakira is supported with pre-recorded material. Word for word: “heavy pre-recorded backing tracks.” This happens when the dance routines become particularly demanding. They are also a safety measure in important television shows.
I cannot help but think of an analogy here with what we saw happening at Eurovision. Despite the elaborate editing and direction, if one paid a little more attention, he would realize that what we were seeing on our screen was not what was happening at that moment on the stage of the Stadthalle in Vienna, both in terms of sound and in the show. The live and the “pre-made” were elaborately mixed.
This situation produces a “polished” consumer product in which music and sound are now of secondary importance, since image always and everywhere prevails. At the same time, the enormous spread of this type of entertainment trains an entire generation to listen to music without actually hearing it.
However, the use of continuously evolving technology creates as well many positive possibilities. The most important is that it gives new independent creators the opportunity to create with sound and image what they want and to communicate it directly. Starting out becomes easier, whether for a composer or a performer. On the other hand the creative process is significantly altered and often completely eroded.
Currently, Facebook and the Internet are flooded with advertisements and program downloads that have in common the characteristics of speed and ease. “You don’t need to know music,” “Just put in the words and ‘X’ writes the lyrics for you,” “Write your idea and let ‘X’ create the video,” etc., etc. A superabundance of tracks created in this way is already circulating. So many of them that they don’t even have space to be heard and distributed.
Because there is something that inventions cannot change: Art has always been and still is “undemocratic.” The interest always lies in the particular, the original, and the unpredictable. In what someone can do better than others. Exactly as it happens in competitive sports.
At the point we are today, there are some limits to what new media can achieve while maintaining interest. Some types of music can be perfectly imitated (or faked), others cannot. For example, they can manage Bach in relatively simple compositions. A few years ago, Marcus du Sautoy (author of the book The Creativity Code) presented in a lecture four short pieces. Two were written by Artificial Intelligence and two were actual Bach. When he asked the audience to distinguish the real from the fake, the answers were 50-50! This shows the degree of success of the endeavor. But in this case, Bach’s particularly logical and structured musical language also helps.
The imitation of a composer’s idiom is something that has been done many times in the past. Puccini’s Turandot was completed by Franco Alfano, while at the beginning, Toscanini also made some interventions. I suppose some musicologists will continue to discuss Mozart’s Requiem indefinitely: Where did his pen stop and on which half-finished page did his student Franz Xaver Süssmayr take over? Let them discuss…
As we said before, the clearer and more defined a composer’s idiom is, the easier it is to complete a work. “I had to become a good forger,” said Kostis Demertzis, to whom we owe the orchestration of Nikos Skalkottas’ Concerto for Two Violins and Orchestra.
Things become significantly more difficult when the personal idiom does not easily fit into predictable rules. There, Artificial Intelligence (or even humans) indeed begin to struggle. A good example is the so-called “Beethoven’s 10th Symphony,” which you can find on YouTube in different versions, either by AI or by the composer and scholar Barry Cooper.
I am providing a link to a complete version, a combination of Artificial Intelligence and human intervention. I think that here, in the combination of the two also shows us a boundary.
Somewhere here lie the current limits and the current possibilities. At least for now. Because the future always remains uncertain!
