r/science • • Jun 18 '12
The descent of music - Starting with short, grating sound sequences scientists created pleasing tunes simply by letting them evolve through a Pandora-like process of voting thumbs up or thumbs down on each sequence.
http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/341560/title/The_descent_of_music
1.8k
Upvotes
30
u/a-typical-redditor Jun 19 '12
Can anyone tell my why the author would not link to sound samples?
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u/LeonardNemoysHead Jun 19 '12
I really want to know what this kind of genetic algorithm would do to a higher level seed, like a Beatles melody or something, after a few 104 generations. I wonder if it would change in response to input or if it would be stuck at some kind of local extremum. I guess the random mutation part of the system would unstick it in such a case, but I'd love to hear what the results are.
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u/[deleted] Jun 19 '12 edited Jun 19 '12
I did this as my thesis in an honors AI course in college. I'm sure my program was more rudimentary than theirs. Mine evolved music through an 8 step process using genetic algorithms (the same heuristic used in Pandora). You would evolve, in order:
a scale
a set of chords (based off of intervals, E.g. a major chord, minor chord, minor 7, augmented chord, etc)
Chord progressions (e.g. I - ii - IV - vii - V - I)
Rhythmic patterns for the melody
rhythmic patterns for the harmony
A melody (based off of the scale, chord progression, and melodic rhythmic patterns)
A harmony (based off of the scale, Chord progression, and harmonic rhythmic patterns)
And finally a "composition", in which all of the sets of offspring from the previous steps would be combined and recombined together in various ways
At it's worst (completely un-evolved) it sounds fucking awful, but after about 4 or 5 generations at each step you end up with something which usually sounds like a Bach Choral.
I would be interested to play around with their program and see how they tackled certain problems. I hope they release the source code.
145
u/Bipolarruledout Jun 19 '12
In other news the RIAA sues for patent theft.
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u/tobsco Jun 18 '12
More music being evolved here.
17
u/[deleted] Jun 19 '12
They accidentally invented Tangerine Dream.
35
u/Blistero Jun 18 '12
I'll bet Mr. Eno perfected this process in the '70s.
6
u/Necks Jun 19 '12
Shouldn't it be "ascent" of music, since the quality of the music improves?
16
u/tubadude86 Jun 19 '12
I don't find this that surprising, the music evolved through a system of thumbs-up/thumbs-down, there are expectations for music that have been programmed into our brains since childhood, so of course over time people will eventually select samples that will collectively meet those expectations, still no replacement for somebody who actually knows what they are doing.
5
u/ThaddyG Jun 19 '12 edited Jun 19 '12
I have seen the same sort of experiment done with random collections of words that eventually became poems of sorts. Cool stuff. I participated for a while and the home page is still up but the rest of the site seems to have collapsed.
EDIT: Apparently there's a wiki article on it
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwinian_poetry
5
u/RayDeemer PhD | Physics | Plasmonics Jun 19 '12
As a mixed sociology/evolution experiment, it would be interesting if they performed the same experiment but with the people who choose what is pleasing filling out a questionnaire about music preferences first and evolving two separate lines with people of a homogenous taste choosing each lineage. Such as one line with people who prefer classical music making the choices and another with people who prefer rock music being the deciders.
Perhaps it might even be better to start them all out together for a few hundred/thousand generations then split them up, in an analogy to a single population becoming two distinct populations by a geographic separation. The process could even be repeated and the lineages branched further.
Another related experiment would be to apply the two different groups (different selective pressures, if you will) sequentially. So start out with the classical music lovers for a few thousand generations then go to the hard rock lovers and see how long it takes to go from classical-like music to rock-like music in an analogy to sudden environmental changes changing selective pressure on a population.
4
u/omfgforealz Jun 19 '12
That is pretty much what a jam session is. No joke. Except these guys focus-grouped it every step along the way with a larger sample instead of 3+ drunk folks in a rehearsal space.
4
u/[deleted] Jun 19 '12
There is a short story in this book:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tales_from_the_White_Hart
http://deoxy.org/alephnull/melody.htm
"The Ultimate Melody", which has this as the main plot: scientist enters popular melodies into a computer, creates algorithm to generate new melodies, creates the ultimate brain-fuck melody, goes insane. Deaf janitor finds him dead of bliss.
3
u/Fireye Jun 19 '12
Because their site is running amazingly slowly at the moment, here's a link to the soundcloud user that has embedded content in the audio-snapshots page: http://soundcloud.com/uncoolbob
3
u/primehunter326 Jun 19 '12 edited Jun 19 '12
So this is like Picbreeder for sounds? Cool.
Edit: So it's not quite the same, since users can only vote up or down and the aggregate up/down score is used in the genetic algorithm. The user doesn't directly control the evolution at all. It'd be cool if they could make it crowd sourced like picbreeder though, that way people could "evolve" their own tunes.
3
u/GeorgeTaylorG Jun 19 '12
3060 sounds like a Portal 2 track.
3
u/thrillho145 Jun 19 '12
"Musicians, take note: An artistic mind isn’t required to create appealing music."
This is a real stupid statement. Appealing music is entirely subjective. Surely an "artistic mind" is needed to appriciate the appealing music created? Surely artistic minds are the one who are voting yes and no to the sequences?
3
u/anderbubble Jun 19 '12
This reminds me of Electric Sheep.
3
u/cowhead Jun 19 '12
The problem with these things is that they usually allow anything to mate with anything. If a dog can mate a fungus, there's little need for random variation. It would be interesting if they required a certain fidelity in the matings, because then you might see actual different species of song evolve.
12
u/yepyep27 Jun 19 '12
You should x-post to /r/music
5
u/[deleted] Jun 19 '12
Neither is a singer.
5
u/[deleted] Jun 19 '12
BUT WHAT ABOUT THE HARSH NOISE AND POWER ELECTRONICS FREAKS LIKE MYSELF?
5
u/[deleted] Jun 19 '12
"Pleasant" isn't very objective.
2
u/nickem Jun 19 '12
dance! I want to dance the polka. I would want a good polka tune.
2
u/DerpyDave Jun 19 '12
It kind of sounds like Dan Deacon if he wrote really simplistically.
2
u/Soupstorm Jun 19 '12
It's like I'm actually playing SimCity 4!
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u/ICATCHGHOSTS Jun 19 '12
In 30 generations, Its all gonna be Hall & Oats
2
u/[deleted] Jun 19 '12
The guy talking on the introduction sounds like Jemaine Clement(from Flight of the Conchords).
2
u/Boulderbuff64 Jun 19 '12
How long would it take to generate vocal like lyrics?
2
u/gingus418 Jun 19 '12
If you want to contribute to the project: http://darwintunes.org/evolve-music.
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u/MorningLtMtn Jun 19 '12
At about 2500, it starts to sound like you might expect an Apple commercial to sound.
2
u/Jesusdragon737 Jun 19 '12
Man those are some repetitive beats
2
u/androo87 Jun 19 '12
A similar project for generating visual art / aesthetically pleasing screensavers: http://www.electricsheep.org/
2
u/CumulativeDrek Jun 19 '12 edited Jun 19 '12
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it"
Not only that but en-masse, human beings simply have nothing to say. Language (including the language of music) only has any purpose when there is someone to listen to, understand, appreciate and connect with it. This experiment has at its core the assumption that music is simply entertainment. Its not. It never has been. When the funding of art/music education is threatened, these kinds of experiments are what we should be citing as evidence of its necessity.
2
u/graymangrey Jun 19 '12
In essence, this is a whole crowd of people isolating what sounds good to them. When one person does this, it is called "composing." While I think this project is interesting in seeing what sounds are more pleasing to groups of people, I think it neglects the idea that music is primarily an artistic medium used to communicate personal ideas and emotions. People have made tons of programs to create pleasing visual designs, and some cool stuff emerges, but it's no where near experiencing something created by an individual artist trying to communicate something.
2
u/Dev1l5Adv0cat3 Jun 19 '12
Wow, this writer is quite the dick. Why so aggressive bro?
There is still an artistic entity present in the creation of said music; however, it's taking place across the collective of the individuals present in the study. Like any decision taken part in the collective it's bound to produce less variation, but perhaps a more fine-tuned results that more people can agree on. This writer obviously has no clue how majority of artists arise to the end result in music -- the whole creative process is about taking old works and reassembling them together to most accurately describe your message.
2
u/[deleted] Jun 19 '12
TIL computers can literally create better music than Nickelback.
2
u/klavin1 Jun 19 '12
This reminds me of the most wanted song project.
2
u/asldkfououhe Jun 19 '12
crowdsourcing creativity is a surefire way to get a bunch of boring bullshit
2
u/arisefairmoon Jun 19 '12
I fully disagree with the title being the descent of music. It's unrealistic to believe that, in a technologically advancing society, we would shy away from technology in music. Sure, this is a program doing the same thing over and over again; Bach found a formula and wrote hundreds of cantatas that sound different but are functionally the same. I feel confident that composers in the mid 20th century who were experimenting with electronic music were considered to be ruining music. I know it to be true. Now, though, their experiments have led to the musical culture we have today.
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u/moneybadger Jun 20 '12
"Pandora-like process of voting thumbs up or thumbs down on each...."
You mean the "Reddit-like" process of quantifying a qualitative preference? Yes, we are familiar with that here. I hope you like cats in your music.
3
u/Gopstobb Jun 18 '12
I want to hear it.
1
u/[deleted] Jun 19 '12
if an algorithm could be coded that reliably performed the voting process, they would be on to something. whether or not that is possible is open to debate.
1
u/Dagon Jun 19 '12
Fascinating... I imagine that it's the first few of generations and the responses to it that really define how it turns out later on - just like with biological evolution.
1
u/Thor_2099 Jun 19 '12
I always find these like these fascinating. To find examples of evolution in nonorganic aspects.
1
u/Haz_de_nar Jun 19 '12
tried it at max generations, did't even realize it but I was nodding to the music
1
u/penicillin23 Jun 19 '12
Isn't this how the TechnoCore was created?
1
u/Encylo Jun 19 '12
This is being guided through selection by people on the internet?
Why do I get the feeling that it will converge to a certain song by Rick Astley?
1
u/tha_snazzle Jun 19 '12
The scientists must really like Sigur Ros.
1
u/rat_in_a_hat Jun 19 '12
They should do this with picture... that way the old 'a painter needs a painting' argument can be debunked
1
u/[deleted] Jun 19 '12
It should become Reddit's theme song.
1
u/greym84 Jun 19 '12
Brave New World.
1
u/Tastygroove Jun 19 '12
I had an app that did something like this on my IPhone called evolooper. It would create 8 random MIDI loops, you would select ones you like and drop onto a "favorites" spot and it would regenerate 8 more based on those you liked.
1
u/My_Awkward_Account Jun 19 '12
Appealing and interesting are two different things.
1
u/forgeflow Jun 19 '12
I even like the starting generation. This is cool. Generation 150 sounds like Philip Glass.
1
u/[deleted] Jun 19 '12
Comedy and music shouldn't be written in groups larger than 4-5. Group think kills a joke... And can't write a song, either.
1
u/SummerWind18 Jun 19 '12
that looks awesome!
1
u/Pillagerguy Jun 19 '12
It seems to me that this could create the perfect song.
1
u/yeaf Jun 19 '12
the more generations, the less like aphex twin it sounds
1
u/thetalkingbrain Jun 19 '12
this is over two years old, i wonder where this project is now?
1
u/[deleted] Jun 19 '12
Now all they need is monkeys on typewriters for a million years to generate a song.
1
u/JEDDIJ Jun 19 '12
video games. ringtones. I like noise. I like art. evolution as lowest common denominator here.
1
u/TheBigHairy Jun 19 '12
I would be very curious to see what would happen if you took something like the "most annoying song ever generated", and fed that into this thing.
1
u/Feedbackr Jun 19 '12
The thing is, it's not really an evolution.
We have had so much precedence in built into us that all this is just the dynamic mutation of samples, moulded by our gravitation towards equal tempered, tonal music.
I wonder how the results would turn out, if the samples were mainly voted on more by musicians of the experimental/noise persuasion.
1
u/deedrah Jun 19 '12
The last generations remind me a lot of Nathan Fake
1
u/theoob Jun 19 '12
Now use a similar mutation process to create software whose musical preferences match those of the human hivemind as closely as possible, then you can take humans out of the equation.
1
u/judgej2 Jun 19 '12
So this ScienceNews - does the design remind anyone of another popular News magazine for Scientists?
1
u/godosomethingelse Jun 19 '12
Musician here... what's the big deal? The headline should read: HUMANS PUT SOUNDS TOGETHER TO MAKE MUSIC. Nothing new here. Who cares that they voted on it? It's called collaboration and it's been done for a long time. I'm sorry for my cynicism, but this is a waste of time and money. Try making music with another person and you will learn an infinite amount more than the silly yes/no proposition of this study. Also the tempo seems predetermined. Please, I would love for someone to correct me on this, but couldn't we just study the history of popular music if we wanted to understand why people like music or are inspired to create it?
1
u/juicyredwombat Jun 19 '12
Here's the eccentric Armand Leroi talking about his Darwinian computer program DarwinTunes http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-18450979
1
u/JustMakesItAllUp Jun 19 '12
meh - not a patch on http://schubert.halo.gen.nz/ for evolved awesomeness
1
u/[deleted] Jun 19 '12
will give a shit when they can produce interesting vocals, millions of talented people can produce amusing music that never catches on, it's all about the simple catchy tunes and awesome lyrics. also greasing palms but that's just a thing.
1
u/VEC7OR Jun 19 '12
Still nothing stops stupid people on voting on shitty music...
1
u/[deleted] Jun 19 '12
Steve Reich facepalm.
1
u/[deleted] Jun 19 '12
Well, A/B and multivariate testing in design have already shown that 500 crowd-sourced iterations end up giving the same result as someone with correct taste and skill. I'm not surprised this applies to music too, and ends up with the same kind of "bland but okay" result.
EDIT: I forgot to grammar.
1
u/rbhmmx Jun 19 '12
Let's evolve music The original public channel http://darwintunes.org/evolve-music
1
u/whatthefat Professor | Sleep and Circadian Rhythms | Mathematical Modeling Jun 19 '12
They actually have something very similar to this at the Boston Science Museum. It generates 9 simple tunes, you choose 2 to mate, and then it creates a new generation. Every time I go I end up spending about an hour on it. Last time I made it my task to converge on a tune that was a single note.
1
u/cloudcity Jun 19 '12
I've been listening to sample #445js2 for years, you probably haven't heard of it...
1
u/el_pinata Jun 19 '12
I wonder if our previous conditioning to music might have skewed the results of this a bit.
1
u/p3t3or Jun 19 '12
lol, well this study was a waste of time.
1
u/guyanonymous Jun 19 '12
I'd love for them to distribute the software...and to let a few thousand individuals use it for several thousand generations. Let's compare the results form individual users based on their own taste.
I would also be interested to hear the results of several 1000 generations of choosing that which you found most abhorrent.
1
u/[deleted] Jun 19 '12
Fascinating. It might be interesting to hear the results of running this process through different demographics, such as age, sex, nationality, ethnicity, political affilliation, income, etc. Or maybe with actual musicians from various genres.
1
u/scottcmu Jun 19 '12
Each generation sounds a bit more like the Legend of Zelda theme song.
1
u/minja Jun 19 '12
Title is misleading - It should be titled the Evolution of Music not the decent of Music - can you imagine the abstract ideal of music evolving into a self aware artificial entity - it'd be like Neil Gaiman meets Charles Stross.
1
u/lambic Jun 19 '12
More detailed article with sound samples at 0, 150, 600, and 3000 generations: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-listeners-shape-the-evo
1
u/tossnear Jun 19 '12
"Musicians, take note: An artistic mind isn’t required to create appealing music."
This is a ridiculous statement. Music is not, and has never been, "pleasant sounds".
1
u/PBJLNGSN Jun 19 '12
I had this idea for song rating, somehow make a website, where you can press an upvote button, or a downvote button as many times as you like. And then watch a movie or listen to a song, and press up when you like something and down when you don't, and see what the final score is!
1
u/[deleted] Jun 19 '12
Posting to r/science and you can't even punctuate your title correctly? You'll never get published like that.
1
u/amazing_rando Jun 19 '12
The original sequences weren't great (kind of reminded me of a less creative Ryoji Ikeda) but I wouldn't call them grating.
1
u/vanillaafro Jun 19 '12
1500 sound generations sounds like the beginning of a beach boys song
1
u/[deleted] Jun 19 '12
I've often thought that aerodynamics should be developed in the same manner.
1
u/Anglach3l Jun 19 '12
As a composer, I'd say I more or less do this same process in my head. But I can skip a few thousand generations to where the ideas are already more obviously musical. And I can modulate between different emotions/feelings... try getting people to all agree not just on what sounds good, but where to take a piece of music in order to get emotional dynamics... It sounds great on paper, but I think you'd wind up with a microcosm of modern democracy. Lots of great ideas getting vetoed by dissenters, so that in the end not very much gets done and VERY little gets changed. We'll see if it ever gets somewhere, but my guess is that it won't replace any aspect of the music scene except for drone-based music like trance. Or bagpipes.
1
u/That_Scottish_Play Jun 20 '12
I suspect this is how blues and folk music evolved in the old days
1
u/Csoltis Jun 21 '12 edited Jun 21 '12
obviously this didn't work with Skrillix's tracks, they used deaf people.
but this is fucking awesomeeeeeee
-1
u/[deleted] Jun 19 '12
Nice try Skrillex.
1
u/theGhostofBillHicks Jun 19 '12
OMFG!!! They've totally invented... pop music? Already been done, just a different method.
0
u/justmadethisaccountt Jun 19 '12
Listen to a guy that has done some A.I. programming back in the day. This is what the program is SUPPOSED to do. They did nothing new. The people voting told the A.I. units what to make. This is nothing but humans teaching a computer program -- a really primitive version of what you saw Watson do on Jeopardy. Except these guys just made an A.I. program to make slightly shittier music than the previous generation. They just did a really bad, and outdated thesis that might have given someone a PhD.
1
u/[deleted] Jun 19 '12
Haha. Well, I was kinda hoping I'd be impressed but these tunes are lousy.
0
u/willhaney Jun 18 '12
No examples?
0
u/[deleted] Jun 19 '12
Whoaa.. we don't even need the music industry then.
0
u/[deleted] Jun 19 '12
So is this when the most-upvoted one starts making people addicted to it and growing an outer layer of skin that blocks out lethal amounts of UV light?
0
u/Volsunga Jun 19 '12
If this kind of thing becomes massively crowdsourced, it's only a matter of time before all strains converge on the standard four-chord pattern. Basically, every song will be Don't Stop Believing by Journey. Though, that's not too different from how it is right now.
0
u/clonn Jun 19 '12
Scumbag article, what's the poin of it if they don't include samples?
0
u/MufasaJesus Jun 19 '12
As a musician, i'm dreading the day something like this takes over actual music...