Search - David H. Cope :: Bach by Design: Computer-Composed Music

Fascinating, Captain.

Robert Carlberg | Seattle | 01/17/1999

(2 out of 5 stars)

"Computer-composed music is in its infancy, but David Cope's EMI (Experiments in Musical Intelligence) is at the forefront. Because the music is programmed to "sound like" Bach, Chopin, Mozart, Joplin, Gershwin and others, Cope's musical pastiches are more advanced, artistically, than similar efforts in computer-authored literature (see Racter "The Policeman's Beard Is Half-Constructed").Unfortunately, this first disc is all programmed on a Yamaha digital piano, with the result that it is fairly dry and monochromatic. The second disc, "Classical Music Composed By Computer," benefits from being performed (by good old humans) on a variety of instruments."

An interesting idea made unenjoyable by performance

ohmysohopeless | Nowhere to Go | 01/02/2007

(2 out of 5 stars)

"This is quite an interesting project; I almost wish that I had access to some sort of text explaining exactly what kind of codes are used to produce the music where the styles are "learned" from the past musical greats. The booklet describes the impressions from Cope himself, but they do not go much beyond impressions and are not very useful in knowing what makes things succeed and not succeed in imitating certain musical styles by a computer.



The performance is less than desirable; all the piano pieces sound as if they are played by a MIDI instrument coded with all the "velocity" setting at a constant value. Hence this one really fails as a recording; it sounds like the CD is worth getting only if it happens to be available at library."