Why can't anybody be a music composer?

[jobyts]

Haven't written many songs, huh? You can never tell where the muse might lead you once you get started, and it's tough (especially for a technically-minded person) to craft lyrics that convey some complex concepts with a few carefully-chosen words. Song-writing is tough, and you only have to listen to Lyle Lovett, John Hiatt, etc, to see why. Where did they get those ideas and those turns of phrase? They didn't spring from the "first 2 or 4 lines" of their music.

I meant, the tune part. I would agree song writing would be much harder from an AI perceptive.

 

[Vanadium 50]

Haven't written many songs, huh?

I'm kind of amused by this - people who haven't done it themselves, but who are absolutely sure that this must be so simple that even a computer can do it.

A pentium has 3 million transistors. A mouse has 3 million neurons. How many mice write symphonies?

 

[turbo]

I'm kind of amused by this - people who haven't done it themselves, but who are absolutely sure that this must be so simple that even a computer can do it.

A pentium has 3 million transistors. A mouse has 3 million neurons. How many mice write symphonies?

I have slaved over lyrics, re-working, tweaking, etc. The melody and rhythm usually come together pretty easily, but the lyrics...? Argh! I've still got a song un-finished from almost 40 years ago - never could get it to come together.

 

[moe darklight]

If writing music or poetry were easy, then all songs and all poems would be good, and there would be very few terrible artists out there.

I think there's an obvious reason why Shakespeares and Beethovens are just as rare as are Newtons and Gausses.

 

[fuzzyfelt]

This was on Neatorama recently:
www.neatorama.com/2009/01/27/only-four-chords-are-needed-to-make-a-hit-song/


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHBVnMf2t7w

This is great, too!

 

[rootX]

If writing music or poetry were easy, then all songs and all poems would be good, and there would be very few terrible artists out there. .

Yes, agree.
If all hit songs are crap or no hard thing to come up with then anyone should be capable of coming up with that crap and becoming filthy rich?

 

[amezcua]

Good basic idea.

 

[junglebeast]

No matter how good your program is, it will never be as good as the worst human.

That said, I've heard it from a friend that the music industry has some kind of software that they run songs into and if they get a high score it influences if they will make that one popular by playing it on the radios...I don't know how much truth to this there is

 

[junglebeast]

This was on Neatorama recently:
www.neatorama.com/2009/01/27/only-four-chords-are-needed-to-make-a-hit-song/


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHBVnMf2t7w

You can always sing the lyrics of one song over another but these chords sound completely different from the songs they are representing to me...and it also sounds like utter crap.

 

[wittgenstein]

"I like it. the "million monkeys on a million keyboards" approach. good luck finding a search algorithm."
Proton Soup
If you had a million Shakespeares could one of them write like a monkey?
OK. I stole that from Steven Wright
But seriously folks...
Is music subjective or objective? Is there an objective way to say with certainty that Mozart is a better composer than I? Obviously, Mozart is way better. But is there an objective algorithm?

 

[junglebeast]

Is music subjective or objective? Is there an objective way to say with certainty that Mozart is a better composer than I? Obviously, Mozart is way better. But is there an objective algorithm?

I think it's a combination of objective and subjective factors. When listening to a new song, whether or not I like it, it is immediately obvious if the artist misses a single note...because it no longer fits with the rest of the song. In other words, it no longer meets the objective criteria necessary for beauty.

Beyond that, there's a large subjective component that determines which types of music you are receptive to enjoying this beauty in, and how much you will enjoy it. This is a combination of mood and social factors.

 

[CRGreathouse]

No matter how good your program is, it will never be as good as the worst human.

You vastly overestimate the worst human. Here's a C program which produces music (a la John Cage) better than that of the worst human:

int main() {
  return 0;
}

 

[Vanadium 50]

produces music (a la John Cage) better than that of the worst human

It's easy to mock 4'33". Have you heard it? If not, I recommend it.

 

[Kenneth Mann]

There are only a finite number music notes. And to create a finite duration of music, write an algorithm that plays all the combinations of the notes in, say, piano. Listen to most/all of them (or outsource them) and pick the better ones. Optionally, improvise them.

What's wrong with this approach? (I'm going to do this if I loose my current job:). Why do we need more than an average brain to compose music?

Or, just copyright all the combinations and live happily ever after.

This is just a rough estimate:
You seem to have a very naive notion concerning what you'd be up against. Consider one simple case - - creating very basic four/fourths melodies. For simplicity, we'll forego such niceties as tempo, timbres, chord patterns and the like, and just look at the simplest of melodies. At the very coursest, we break each measure up into eight eighth note intervals. (Sixteenth-note intervals would be more realistic, but let's not overcomplicate things.) Now, each of these intervals can be either a sounded note, or a rest. Furthermore we simplify by not being concerned with note intensities - - which would complicate things considerably. We shall consider "note" or "no-note" for each of the eight positions within the bar. Immediately, this leads us to 2^8, or 256 possibilities. Now, we can assume each of these bars to average four sounded notes (and four rest positions). (In reality, there are generally more notes than rests.) We also shall ignore whether the notes are legato or stoccato, a further simplification. Finally we shall look at the simplest of phrases - - one of only four bars in length. This would contain 2^32 possibilities, roughly 4 billion.

To construct the simplest melodies, a two-octave note range is called for - - twenty four values. Thus to generate all possible values for this rudimentary case the program will generate 24^32 distinct melodies. This yields over 10^44 melodies to be evaluated - - and these are just the simplest of melodies. If you are going to do this, I'd suggest you get started soon. At a couple hundred a day it's going to take a while. Also remember, if you want to take on more sophisticated cases, it will take even longer - - much, much longer. Good luck.

KM

 

[bassplayer142]

I would say your best bet is to use the program to develop small melodies that are catchy. The probability of making an entire song is our of this world improbable when you consider every note and rhythm combination.

I personally believe that truly beautiful music isn't just a logical statement but an emotional one.

 

[Kenneth Mann]

I would say your best bet is to use the program to develop small melodies that are catchy. The probability of making an entire song is our of this world improbable when you consider every note and rhythm combination.

I personally believe that truly beautiful music isn't just a logical statement but an emotional one.

The odds are long against being able to derive even the simplest tunes with this approach. Even a single octave diatonic melody would entail 9^32 iterations (343x10^9). How many eons would that take? It's really next to hopeless.

The irony lies in the fact that melodies can be generated using other approaches. There was a module (hardware), called "Muse", made about forty years ago, that could create some relatively pleasing (if somewhat unusual) melodies. The secret is to take advantage of some of the relationships and symmetries that are found in pleasing music. A "brute-force" approach, on the other hand, is very unlikely to work. To generate good computer-composed music, I would suggest that the person interested look into "associative processors". On the other hand, the best associative processor is probably the human brain. I'd suggest that study of composition and practice is the very best approach.

KM

 

[bassplayer142]

The odds are long against being able to derive even the simplest tunes with this approach. Even a single octave diatonic melody would entail 9^32 iterations (343x10^9). How many eons would that take? It's really next to hopeless.

The irony lies in the fact that melodies can be generated using other approaches. There was a module (hardware), called "Muse", made about forty years ago, that could create some relatively pleasing (if somewhat unusual) melodies. The secret is to take advantage of some of the relationships and symmetries that are found in pleasing music. A "brute-force" approach, on the other hand, is very unlikely to work. To generate good computer-composed music, I would suggest that the person interested look into "associative processors". On the other hand, the best associative processor is probably the human brain. I'd suggest that study of composition and practice is the very best approach.

KM

How about a computer that learned off a musician. If someone plugged into it and started jamming out on the guitar then you could program the computer to find relationships in that particular persons style.

 

[amezcua]

Jobyts
Like your style! Apart from the music aspect there is a danger that the copyright of every combination might legally work.BOING ! --- what a crazy situation that would be.
I lost one post a week ago but since then I read a history of the French mathematician Mersenne.He was fascinated by musical subjects and proved that there were 40,320 possible combinations of 8 notes.
My "lost" post referred to a book by Barlow and Morgenstern to show that most famous tunes are built on groups of 8 notes.The book is ;A Dictionary of Musical Themes.
Your idea to make a computer generate combinations actually works .
You will notice a lot of replies refer to you switching on a computer and waiting for the stuff to land in your lap. That is not what you suggested.You put the important ingredient in there.You would decide what was worth keeping. I have tried this and it does work and a lot quicker than I expected.
The KEY point is that sitting before a blank sheet of paper is enormously more difficult than sifting through random 8 notes which QUITE OFTEN produces musical combinations.
Organise 8 audible notes to sound.Have a repeat control,a delete control and one to let the notes run on if it sounds promising.Base everything on 8 notes.Work with the key signature system so that it won`t be all sharps and flats.
For efficiency I collected groups of notes and then played them out on a piano afterwards.
Best (or most unexpected) result was the whole oboe solo from the slow movement in the Brahms Violin Concerto, all correct apart from the second note from the end.
One crazy sounding piece left to repeat was very addictive.
It takes a few days to get into the routine and then if you thought you had a musical streak
you find you were correct. Most people will scoff and not try it .That puts you one step ahead.
In the Eurovision Song contest most pieces played do not follow the 8 note "rule" and that`s why they are mostly rubbish.

 

[amezcua]

When I logged on just now I wrote the above post then I was told --You are not logged on.That`s how my first post went walkabout.Some slipping cogs in this machine.

 

[jobyts]

A decent computer chess AI program remembers 10^120 positions. The difficulty in creating computer generated tunes lies not in finding out all the combinations. The difficulty is in choosing which tune is better than the other one. In a chess program, there is deterministic way to find out move A is better than move B. But choosing a tune would be much harder for a computer. It's harder, but doable with some human interaction.

Use internet, ask people to listen to x tunes and choose the best 2 from it. Do it recursively until the number of tunes are small enough for someone to listen.

 

[Kenneth Mann]

How about a computer that learned off a musician. If someone plugged into it and started jamming out on the guitar then you could program the computer to find relationships in that particular persons style.

Actually you've got something here. There are several relationships in music that can be used. The easiest way to these, however, is not through a computer which listens, but rather by programming in some of the already known relationships (musocologists spend a lot of time and effort working on these). There was a machine (called Muse - - - no relationship to present-day entities of the same name) made several decades ago that used one of these simple algorithme. It could come up with some rather pleasing - - - if sometimes odd sounding - - - tunes. It is definitely possible, but this method is not totally random.

KM

 

[Hel]

I think absolutely anybody can write 12 tone music, and an algorithm could easily be made for that, but the only people who actually listen to 12 tone music are geeks and professional classical musicians.


Tintinnabulation (google Arvo Pärt) is also a possibility. Pärt's music usually follows a strict pattern, very predictable. However, the thing that makes his music incredible is the way he breaks the pattern, sometimes in such a way that one note at the beginning effects all subsequent notes.
(My organ prof did a a lot of research on this)

There are lots of rules in music that exist because anything different sounds strange or bad to us, simply because it's not something we are used to. (example: parallel fifths in voice leading was actually banned by the Vatican for a time because it "came from the devil". Parallel fifths will still get you docked on Music Theory exams, as I discovered from personal experience.)

Lots of people who don't even know these rules instinctively follow them because if they weren't followed, the music wouldn't sound good.

Even if a program were made that can follow all the established rules of music theory, the computer won't be able to determine when it's necessary to break these rules for the sake of making the music sound better.
That's also why only certain people are composers. Being able to listen and determine what sounds good and knowing how to make it better is difficult!

Okay I'll stop... although I didn't even mention counterpoint, form, or film scoring!

Edit: My point: Anybody can make music, but only certain people will be able to make music that sounds great.

 

[Kenneth Mann]

I think absolutely anybody can write 12 tone music, and an algorithm could easily be made for that, but the only people who actually listen to 12 tone music are geeks and professional classical musicians.


Tintinnabulation (google Arvo Pärt) is also a possibility. Pärt's music usually follows a strict pattern, very predictable. However, the thing that makes his music incredible is the way he breaks the pattern, sometimes in such a way that one note at the beginning effects all subsequent notes.
(My organ prof did a a lot of research on this)

There are lots of rules in music that exist because anything different sounds strange or bad to us, simply because it's not something we are used to. (example: parallel fifths in voice leading was actually banned by the Vatican for a time because it "came from the devil". Parallel fifths will still get you docked on Music Theory exams, as I discovered from personal experience.)

Lots of people who don't even know these rules instinctively follow them because if they weren't followed, the music wouldn't sound good.

Even if a program were made that can follow all the established rules of music theory, the computer won't be able to determine when it's necessary to break these rules for the sake of making the music sound better.
That's also why only certain people are composers. Being able to listen and determine what sounds good and knowing how to make it better is difficult!

Okay I'll stop... although I didn't even mention counterpoint, form, or film scoring!

Edit: My point: Anybody can make music, but only certain people will be able to make music that sounds great.

Amen!

Thanks for your help.
I'm afraid I wasn't doing very well convincing these guys that they couldn't simply take a program that serially (not twelve-tone, but it would probably sound like it) combines notes and expect to become the next Bach.

KM

 

[Kenneth Mann]

Jobyts

I lost one post a week ago but since then I read a history of the French mathematician Mersenne.He was fascinated by musical subjects and proved that there were 40,320 possible combinations of 8 notes.

I would not put too much stock in Mersennein that matter. He lived before the time of modern music - - - in fact, when he was here the well tempered scale was just coming into existence. (He contributed to it himself.) It took the works of those who followed him (notably Bach) to establish the practices of today's music. Up to that time established music was a much narrower set of practices, and what was considered music had strict limits (church influence). Like Plainsong, which usually didn't even make use of rhythm patterns. (There were rhythmic tunes around, but whether they were known to follow rules might be questioned.) Music then was a work in progress.

KM

 

[amezcua]

I logged in.Posted an answer.Then I was told ,You are not logged in.Message at top said "log out".So I logged in.Then my message had disappeared.-----------------------------You tell me!

 

[amezcua]

Forget Bach--- Chess computers----Algorithms.You choose.A computer has no emotions.No feelings.Try it .Just two tunes a day.8 random notes.

 

[Hel]

Yes... 8 random notes a day... that's sure to make you a composer of GREAT renown.

Because EVERYBODY will be just tripping over each other to purchase that.

/end sarcasm.

Sorry to anyone who took offense to that.

What I'm trying to say is, even if you have a nice melody of 8 notes from a computer, there is still a terribly huge amount of work to do before you can dream of publishing or having it performed.

To quote the first post:

What's wrong with this approach? (I'm going to do this if I loose my current job:). Why do we need more than an average brain to compose music?

First off, I don't think you need more than an average brain to compose music. People have started composing at very young ages, when their brains weren't fully developed. (this includes people who aren't famous, not just mozart.)

Second, taking a tune derived from an algorithm to the point where people will want to purchase it in some form is a process that would take an excruciating amount of time and effort. In fact, making the tune is the easy part: developing it into a piece is the bulk of the composing. The process of turning a tune into a concerto or film score is what puts food on the table for composers: nobody wants to buy 8 note melodies.

That process is typically shortened by the amount of people's knowledge and musical experience--especially their ability to listen and analyze what they're hearing.
(“To listen is an effort, and just to hear is no merit. A duck hears also.” Igor Stravinsky)

A masterpiece is exactly what it sounds like: a piece made by somebody who is a master of what they are doing. (Whether it be painting, writing, or composing)
And all the people I know who have mastered the art of writing music usually don't need inspiration from a computer.

 

[Galteeth]

You will run into the "what breathes fire into the equations?" problem here. But it's still an interesting thing to think about.

Alot of people who study music theory find their ability to make "good" music inhibited afterwards. (Just my personal observation.)

 

[Hel]

Alot of people who study music theory find their ability to make "good" music inhibited afterwards. (Just my personal observation.)

Having taken music theory from a professor who studied at Julliard while pursuing his doctorate, I would have to disagree.

Amongst other things, we were required to learn how to improvise a melody on piano over a given chord progression for keyboard exams. Our projects--what few there were--consisted of composing short pieces, and for most people it was actually a first. (There were 20 some people in the class, only 7 of whom were majors, and only 2 of whom desired to pursue a career in music. I am close friends with most of them, and know that a lot of them enjoyed learning to compose music.)

Thus many people who took the class learned how to just come up with a melody at will, since we had to do this multiple times. Not that everybody cared for it, but the class certainly did not inhibit anybody's composing ability.

In fact, when I began the class I wouldn't have been able to write anything more than 30 seconds long, but by the end, I could easily put out more than 3 minutes of music with no repeats after only 4 to 6 hours. (note that this depends heavily on how many parts there are. If it were a 12 part orchestra score it would probably take me twice as long.)

I'm not saying that everybody was suddenly able to come up with a sonata comparable to Beethoven's, but I know for myself that I gained tools that allowed me to write much better music than I had before.

 

[Galteeth]

I'm not arguing that learning theory won't make you technically more proficient. I'm just not sure it has much to do with making "good" music.

I was referring to people who already know how to write music. Friends I've had who got into theory, the stuff that interested them was valued for its compositional complexity rather then for its immediate saliency. I'm sure you've heard of "math rock."

In other words, they were into music that only they and their friends who knew theory appreciated. I distinctly recall this quote. "I used to like that stuff, but I just can't appreciate anything based on a three chord progression anymore. It's like, once you realize what they're doing, it loses its appeal."

Personally i like music's ability to synergistically combine with lyrics in such a way that it becomes a more direct and immediate form of communication then language alone. I could care less about "elegance."

 

[Hel]

Learning theory (and particularly counterpoint) would likely change what people consider "good" music. However, "good" is a relative term that you haven't defined: if somebody taking music theory changes their perspective of "good" music, then they might argue that they didn't even know what "good" music was before taking the class, let alone been able to write it.

I will say that most popular musicians in the world (that is, artists who write their music and perform it themselves) don't bother with music theory. The famous ones are the ones who are able to make it sound appealing by experience and a good ear, and not necessarily education.

Most classical musicians who compose and want many people to hear their music go in the direction of film scoring, and I can say with confidence that most, if not all successful film composers have a strong background in music theory.

While now I notice more things in the music I listen to, it usually doesn't bother me too much. I'm more annoyed when a band puts out the same thing every album. (e.g. Dragonforce... my brother once opened three tabs on youtube and played three different ones of their songs simultaneously. It sounded pretty much the same :p )
Other than that I'm not too picky, although I've noticed that much of the music I listen to has narration. (Hey... if a band can get Christopher Lee to narrate an entire album for them, they've probably got some merit, no?)

 

[Galteeth]

Learning theory (and particularly counterpoint) would likely change what people consider "good" music. However, "good" is a relative term that you haven't defined: if somebody taking music theory changes their perspective of "good" music, then they might argue that they didn't even know what "good" music was before taking the class, let alone been able to write it.

I will say that most popular musicians in the world (that is, artists who write their music and perform it themselves) don't bother with music theory. The famous ones are the ones who are able to make it sound appealing by experience and a good ear, and not necessarily education.

Most classical musicians who compose and want many people to hear their music go in the direction of film scoring, and I can say with confidence that most, if not all successful film composers have a strong background in music theory.

While now I notice more things in the music I listen to, it usually doesn't bother me too much. I'm more annoyed when a band puts out the same thing every album. (e.g. Dragonforce... my brother once opened three tabs on youtube and played three different ones of their songs simultaneously. It sounded pretty much the same :p )
Other than that I'm not too picky, although I've noticed that much of the music I listen to has narration. (Hey... if a band can get Christopher Lee to narrate an entire album for them, they've probably got some merit, no?)

I agree. But if somebody ever said the sentence "Man, I didn't even know what good music was before I took this class," I'm probably going to assume their a d****bag.

 

[Proton Soup]

speaking of "math rock", what about "math classical"? i have never cared for Bach. i appreciate that it's complex, i just don't like listening to it. but Mozart... now that is music.

 

[Kenneth Mann]

Following are just a few observations!

jobyts
Starting with baby steps, we can play all the notes with a quarter note, skip all the dynamics, staccato, legato... Keep it all for improvisation.

This will make everything pretty bland. Very few melodies are written using nothing shorter than quarter notes. Eighth notes are vital. Even "Few of my favorite things" has eighth notes, and would sound a bit odd without them.

I just counted "Few of my favourite things" sheet music. If you skip all the redundant/repeating measures, it comes to a maximum of 30 measures (90 notes). In a particular signature, let's limit to, say 15 notes. That brings it to 15^90 permutations.

15^90 is approximately 10^106. If simply a serial generation of all possibilities is used, and 100 of these examined per day, it would take 10^104 days to go through all possibilities. This would amount to 2.74^101 years. (The universe is only approximately 1.5^10 years old so this "brute force approach obviously won't work.) To limit these, you would need to make use of all the rules possible that define what constitutes "good music", and programmers have been working on that for over fifty years. It's not as easy as some would like to believe.

I remember from my AI undergrad class that there are 10^120 combinations in a chessboard. So it's less complex than a chess AI.

Because of its artificial and well-structured nature, the rules of Chess are easy by comparison.

bassplayer142
How about a computer that learned off a musician. If someone plugged into it and started jamming out on the guitar then you could program the computer to find relationships in that particular persons style.

This would require tremendous artificial intelligence capability. Presently, our artificial intelligence is not up to that job. This capability awaits a major breakthrough in associative processor design - - like the human brain.

amezcua

Jobyts
I read a history of the French mathematician Mersenne.He was fascinated by musical subjects and proved that there were 40,320 possible combinations of 8 notes.

Music is a subjective, emotional experience, and as such, cannot be "proven". What needs to be done is to define what makes the music appealing. This was not the case in Mersenne's day. Then, the church defined what was acceptable, and it imposed stiff strictures on top of a very limited structure of what is acceptable. Today, what is acceptable and good is much greater.

My "lost" post referred to a book by Barlow and Morgenstern to show that most famous tunes are built on groups of 8 notes.The book is ;A Dictionary of Musical Themes.

Where is this reference in the book? I didn't see it in my copy (it's an old one) I would like to find it.

Your idea to make a computer generate combinations actually works .
You will notice a lot of replies refer to you switching on a computer and waiting for the stuff to land in your lap. That is not what you suggested.You put the important ingredient in there.You would decide what was worth keeping.

I don't think people were making that mistake. I certainly understood that the evaluation of the "melodies" would be done by people. The problem is the magnitude of what would have to be evaluated - - most of it bad - - unless the generating program has intelligence to define what the rules of acceptability are - - and this takes music structural knowledge by the programmer - - preferably with good artificial intelligence. This will not be an easy task.

I have tried this and it does work and a lot quicker than I expected.

Tell us about it. It sounds as if you have succeeded where others have found enormous difficulty.

The KEY point is that sitting before a blank sheet of paper is enormously more difficult than sifting through random 8 notes which QUITE OFTEN produces musical combinations.

Explain! This is totally unclear.

For efficiency I collected groups of notes and then played them out on a piano afterwards.
Random or composed?
In the Eurovision Song contest most pieces played do not follow the 8 note "rule" and that`s why they are mostly rubbish.

Are you referring to the Diatonic scale (plus one). In any case you must add two more "notes", one for "rest" value (no note), and the other for note continuation (ie. for "Diiiinnnngggg" rather than "Ding - Ding") such as a quarter note rather than two eighth notes.

jobyts
A decent computer chess AI program remembers 10^120 positions. The difficulty in creating computer generated tunes lies not in finding out all the combinations. The difficulty is in choosing which tune is better than the other one. In a chess program, there is deterministic way to find out move A is better than move B. But choosing a tune would be much harder for a computer. It's harder, but doable with some human interaction.

Therein lies the rub! Have you created or laid-out these AI routines? If so, you have what others before you have found considerably difficult.

Use internet, ask people to listen to x tunes and choose the best 2 from it. Do it recursively until the number of tunes are small enough for someone to listen.

Will they be paid?

hel
Even if a program were made that can follow all the established rules of music theory, the computer won't be able to determine when it's necessary to break these rules for the sake of making the music sound better.
That's also why only certain people are composers. Being able to listen and determine what sounds good and knowing how to make it better is difficult!

His program will never beat a good human. The task is just too subjective.

hel
First off, I don't think you need more than an average brain to compose music. People have started composing at very young ages, when their brains weren't fully developed. (this includes people who aren't famous, not just mozart.)

Second, taking a tune derived from an algorithm to the point where people will want to purchase it in some form is a process that would take an excruciating amount of time and effort. In fact, making the tune is the easy part: developing it into a piece is the bulk of the composing. The process of turning a tune into a concerto or film score is what puts food on the table for composers: nobody wants to buy 8 note melodies.

That process is typically shortened by the amount of people's knowledge and musical experience--especially their ability to listen and analyze what they're hearing.
(“To listen is an effort, and just to hear is no merit. A duck hears also.” Igor Stravinsky)

A masterpiece is exactly what it sounds like: a piece made by somebody who is a master of what they are doing. (Whether it be painting, writing, or composing)
And all the people I know who have mastered the art of writing music usually don't need inspiration from a computer.

Those are great observations!