The Truth is, Free Improvisation is Extremely Easy to Do....

[mhatta]

Reading the discussion reminded me of this. This AI learns Coltrane's Intersteller Space and endlessly generates "free jazz" that sounds like it, an experiment from 2019 (long before the recent ChatGPT and other stuff!). So it can probably play even better now. What do you think? I actually quite like it.

 

Edited July 11, 2023 by mhatta

[Dan Gould]

Won't load, and I like it just fine.

[rostasi]

Love the cigarette break at the 9-minute mark.

[JSngry]

That AI take on Interstellar Space is just silly. It sounds more like a tape being played in reverse than it does a tenor. And there is no architecture. None.

I'll not blame the program, I'll blame the programmers. 

[AllenLowe]

15 minutes ago, JSngry said:

That AI take on Interstellar Space is just silly. It sounds more like a tape being played in reverse than it does a tenor. And there is no architecture. None.

I'll not blame the program, I'll blame the programmers. 

agree completely; I have to admit I was somewhat relieved.

[JSngry]

You would think that it would be a lot better. Interstellar space is very "mathematical" music, very clearly and cleanly.

My hunch is that the programmers had no grasp of the actual music and did this as a "stunt" thinking that nobody could tell the difference.

Well, the joke is on them 

[jlhoots]

8 minutes ago, JSngry said:

You would think that it would be a lot better. Interstellar space is very "mathematical" music, very clearly and cleanly.

My hunch is that the programmers had no grasp of the actual music and did this as a "stunt" thinking that nobody could tell the difference.

Well, the joke is on them 

👍

[danasgoodstuff]

On 7/10/2023 at 11:10 AM, AllenLowe said:

I don't have a goal, per se, except to clarify my own position as a saxophonist and composer; and I say immodestly that the work my group has done on our last 2 projects is a reasonable alternative to the prevailing modes of open playing, as a way of integrating composition and a good deal of freedom. I can post some of the things we have done a bit later, but the best compliments I have gotten were that I "had reinvented free jazz;" that my work was "a wakeup call from the avant garde" (Jonathan Lethem) and, according to Anthony Braxton, "Allen Lowe is one of the few musicians doing anything new....Allen Lowe IS the tradition."

I think that what we are doing is important though it is an uphill struggle for recognition.

this is high school level guitar; no better than what I do in those two pieces:

 

or this; amateurism posing as anti-orthodoxy:

 

 

 

You'll be thrilled to know Halvorson won the downbeat critics poll as best guitarist, again.  Not TDLR/new star, overall best now working.  Not my cuppa, but I'm not going to cast for sturgeons. 

One last observation (ha!  that'll be the day), saying something is easy to do is weak sauce as criticism.  it's reactionary small town music store practice room stuff worthy of the worst elements of Sax on the Web where they think Charlie Parker ruined music.  Sure it's easy to do, but it's very hard to do well and I have no more difficulty telling the good from the not so good in free/avant playing than anywhere else, and I love Ben Webster but I'm not convinced he's 'better' than Turrentine.  And sometimes participation is more important than ranking/winning, and always broad participation is what makes the best happen and matter.

[Dan Gould]

1 hour ago, JSngry said:

You would think that it would be a lot better. Interstellar space is very "mathematical" music, very clearly and cleanly.

My hunch is that the programmers had no grasp of the actual music and did this as a "stunt" thinking that nobody could tell the difference.

Well, the joke is on them 

Except aside from people like you who can do the math and recognize it, how many others can't possibly tell the difference?

 

[rostasi]

I’m thinking that the Aurobindo Ivor Coltrane “version” is
patchwork free-jazz while the original is lineal free-jazz.
I usually don’t care what the original intention is when it
comes to things like this, because I view it as a learning
tool rather than something to create a definitive outcome,
so with that in mind, it really has my mental gears a’turnin’.

[JSngry]

2 hours ago, Dan Gould said:

Except aside from people like you who can do the math and recognize it, how many others can't possibly tell the difference?

 

I have no idea and don't really care, to be honest. It's not a contest! I can hear it because I liked it (a lot) from the very first listening and kept digging into it over the years. I did the work because I liked the work, simple as that!

If you don't like something at all, then ok. Let it be. No crime in that. But that's you not liking it, nothing more. Own your own tastes, right? 

But for something to present itself as somehow "scientific" when it's clearly ignorant of the subject... how an I supposed to trust "them"?

Impossible. 

The honest thing would be to keep that initial failure of the AI to yourself and keep practicing until you got it right. 

Because... that's kinda the way music works. 

[JSngry]

44 minutes ago, rostasi said:

I’m thinking that the Aurobindo Ivor Coltrane “version” is
patchwork free-jazz while the original is lineal free-jazz.
I usually don’t care what the original intention is when it
comes to things like this, because I view it as a learning
tool rather than something to create a definitive outcome,
so with that in mind, it really has my mental gears a’turnin’.

I'm not at all convinced of that.

Yesterday's New Quintet, THAT'S intentional (and delightfully so).

This is... They very consciously tied their outcome to a very specific piece of music. 

Aggressive marketing mindset at work here in service of a clearly, imo, inferiorly executed experiment.

How about just releasing it in the wild and leave Interstellar Space out of it? Stand on your own two feet, digital they may be. 

[rostasi]

Oh, I'm not saying that they had any ideas of patchwork vs. lineal - that's just what I get out of it when listening. Yeah, you're right about it being a stunt to poke at "free-jazzers," but, like I said, I don't care what their intentions were. I'm just listening. The same people are also very into scrambling heavy metal too - I mean it appears to be nearly 90% of their output on their YouTube channel - so, none of this is meant to be any kind of serious inquiry into machine language. It's pretty much just screwing around, so I'm listening to it with that in mind (as well as with a mental scan of it's curiously stochastic nature).

There is software out there already where you can enter whatever source audio that you choose, so, again, they're having a "mickey-take" - as the British say - with the new tech and, some superficial ideas.

Edited July 12, 2023 by rostasi

[JSngry]

I don't trust them. They have a malevolent spirit. Kick them off the bus right now.

#buddylives

[AllenLowe]

11 hours ago, danasgoodstuff said:

You'll be thrilled to know Halvorson won the downbeat critics poll as best guitarist, again.  Not TDLR/new star, overall best now working.  Not my cuppa, but I'm not going to cast for sturgeons. 

One last observation (ha!  that'll be the day), saying something is easy to do is weak sauce as criticism.  it's reactionary small town music store practice room stuff worthy of the worst elements of Sax on the Web where they think Charlie Parker ruined music.  Sure it's easy to do, but it's very hard to do well and I have no more difficulty telling the good from the not so good in free/avant playing than anywhere else, and I love Ben Webster but I'm not convinced he's 'better' than Turrentine.  And sometimes participation is more important than ranking/winning, and always broad participation is what makes the best happen and matter.

I get your point but we will have to, as the cliche goes, agree yo disagree. I received the best reviews of my life on the Shipp/Cleaver/Ray thing and I know it was half as good as the esp things I just put out. I know that a lot of players secretly agree with me. I don’t think it’s the same as the Bird question but the SOTW guys are a weird bunch, great on equipment, weak on music. But I have a few projects coming up that will mix both styles so we shall see.

As for guitarists I work with a guy -Ray Suhy - who can do it all with greater substance and feeling. 

[danasgoodstuff]

Yeah, SOTW is in its own dimension. Not that that's bad, it's just different.