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I gave every train in New York an instrument

trainjazz.com

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Re: I gave every train in New York an instrument

#31

Post by drfloyd51 »

AlBugdy wrote: post #9

It's interesting that a lot people like this but dislike AI-generated music. The music itself here is completely random to us, yet I can't see how AI-generated music can be worse than random. The idea is novel/fun/cool, but the notes ARE random as far as we can tell. So if you're against AI music, you just like the idea but don't care about the music or... something else I can't imagine. I think we can all come up wi…

This is not random in the slightest. Each instrument was carefully chosen based on characteristics of the line. The notes were placed along the line by a human. Each step of the way involved a human making choices. The underlying driver… the trains locations are on a schedule.

There are variations as trains run fast or slow or not at all. Even those events are results of causes.

It might not be repeatable or predictable but it is not random.

Also, an artist made this. I can appreciate the design and flair of another human. AI is soulless. And there was a nothing to celebrate. No one to clap on the back and say “good job”. No one to identify with and say “people are really neat.”

Re: I gave every train in New York an instrument

#33

Post by drfloyd51 »

AlBugdy wrote: post #9

It's interesting that a lot people like this but dislike AI-generated music. The music itself here is completely random to us, yet I can't see how AI-generated music can be worse than random. The idea is novel/fun/cool, but the notes ARE random as far as we can tell. So if you're against AI music, you just like the idea but don't care about the music or... something else I can't imagine. I think we can all come up wi…

I don’t actually care for jazz. But I like this for the concept. I listed to this longer than any other jazz I had the option to turn off. Just to explore the results and learn about the different lines. Music, art really, includes far more than the notes, or finished product.

Bolero is an amazing piece of music. Ravel’s brain was suffering from a degenerative disease at the time. We would not have Bolero without his disease. That fact to me turns the piece of music into a meditation on what his mind may have been like. What it might have been to be Ravel.

Re: I gave every train in New York an instrument

#34

Post by jonnybgood »

AlBugdy wrote: post #22
pierrec wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The music all by itself is not particularly enjoyable here. What's great is the concept, execution, and the way data from an unlikely source is directly audible in the music. What defines art will always be fuzzy, but this particular work is a good example of art I can appreciate: presenting known things in an unusual way, playing with perception to create new connections between remote concepts, and sometimes provid…

I've had a hard time appreciating art so far, especially the ones that focus primarily on the concept, like this one. I get that it's novel and interesting, but I can't see myself spending more than a few minutes on it. Therefore, the value for me is negligible even though I can appreciate its novelty. That's how I feel with most art - "yeah, it's cool, but can I look at something else now?". The time someone spent o…

> Yeah, I probably don't get art as others do.

There is no consensus on getting an art piece. The great thing I find about art is that it’s different for everyone. Music is art and yet everyone “gets” their preferred genre, instruments, bands, etc.

Re: I gave every train in New York an instrument

#35

Post by AlBugdy »

drfloyd51 wrote: post #31
AlBugdy wrote: post #9

It's interesting that a lot people like this but dislike AI-generated music. The music itself here is completely random to us, yet I can't see how AI-generated music can be worse than random. The idea is novel/fun/cool, but the notes ARE random as far as we can tell. So if you're against AI music, you just like the idea but don't care about the music or... something else I can't imagine. I think we can all come up wi…

This is not random in the slightest. Each instrument was carefully chosen based on characteristics of the line. The notes were placed along the line by a human. Each step of the way involved a human making choices. The underlying driver… the trains locations are on a schedule. There are variations as trains run fast or slow or not at all. Even those events are results of causes. It might not be repeatable or predicta…

Maybe I wasn't clear with my definition of "random" for this purpose.

> The underlying driver… the trains locations are on a schedule.

> There are variations as trains run fast or slow or not at all. Even those events are results of causes.

> It might not be repeatable or predictable but it is not random.

It's not truly random in a philosophical sense, but it's unpredictable so it's random for us.

A coin toss is never truly random as it's just a piece of metal obeying the laws of physics as it flies through the air. As another example, let's say I make music out of SHA512 of fragments of this thread. Each would be technically predictable and reproducible, yet it would be completely random to us.

Without going deep into whether there's something "truly random" at all, we should acknowledge that the train schedule and all the causes for delays are completely opaque to us when we hear the music, thus making it random to us. Maybe it's different than calling rand() in a programming language. Maybe there are some regularities hidden into the noise. But for all intents and purposes it's random.

You can divide this art into several parts - the concept, the execution, and the actual output, i.e. the random (for us) music and the pretty UI. The concept may be novel, but it's not really wow-worthy. The execution is good, but that's technical. The random music and the UI are OK, but they're not that interesting by themselves, either, at least to me.

What I'm struggling with is why I can't appreciate this as others apparently do. Maybe combining the concept, the execution and the output (or however you want to slice the whole thing) is more than the sum of its parts. But to me the concept is enough. It's kinda funny, in a sense that it would hold my attention for a few seconds. The execution and the output are standard - what you'd expect from the concept. It's almost as if I asked a sufficiently advanced AI "make a page with sounds from different trains based on their schedule" or something similar.

I have only positive feelings for whoever made this, but if they'd made a 1000000-piece puzzle or just stacked 100000 rocks on top of each other, I'd still have the same feelings - "good jobs; glad you were able to take the time to do something you enjoy". And that's it. It's just executing an idea that itself is worth of a quick "hmm" and nothing more.

Re: I gave every train in New York an instrument

#36

Post by amelius »

drfloyd51 wrote: post #31
AlBugdy wrote: post #9

It's interesting that a lot people like this but dislike AI-generated music. The music itself here is completely random to us, yet I can't see how AI-generated music can be worse than random. The idea is novel/fun/cool, but the notes ARE random as far as we can tell. So if you're against AI music, you just like the idea but don't care about the music or... something else I can't imagine. I think we can all come up wi…

This is not random in the slightest. Each instrument was carefully chosen based on characteristics of the line. The notes were placed along the line by a human. Each step of the way involved a human making choices. The underlying driver… the trains locations are on a schedule. There are variations as trains run fast or slow or not at all. Even those events are results of causes. It might not be repeatable or predicta…

The sound of any running machine can be enjoyable.

I suppose that holds if you expand the scope of the machine to a railway network and you change the timbre of the individual sounds.

Re: I gave every train in New York an instrument

#40

Post by ianbutler »

card_zero wrote: post #23
AlBugdy wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So it has to do with our expectations (what we're promised) and with the fact anyone can make it? I get both points but neither seems to be about the music itself.

My exposure to AI music so far has been when I went to the local Japanese takeout to get udon. They had a big Midjourney-looking generated picture of Mount Fuji on the wall, with a cherry tree in front, and falling cherry blossom. It was full of completely unrewarding details that it was pointless to focus on, and the music they were playing was similar: endless soft love songs where each one was almost, but not quit…

I think in 90% of the galleries I've been in the I'm expecting the art to be communicating something so I'm inferring intent or making my own, but by itself art is a poor communication medium imo. So much so we often say it's about whatever YOU perceive from it. Obviously artists set out to invoke --something-- and we accept that and at least some of us try to think on it, but the person perceiving the art is really doing a lot of work to fill in the gaps. Expectations here are aligned.

Most art in stores is just filling space on a wall to bring things together visually. I don't know that anyone cares about it communicating anything other than "the space looks less empty and more appealing for the customer". I don't think the average store owner is thinking any harder than that on it. I guess my point being we're mostly subjected to it based on the perspective we will like it and its cheap.

I think my point is, that the expectation of the people placing the thing for us to view/listen to and our own can be mismatched. I've always viewed the shitty pop in department stores as an imposition on my ears and I've never spared a thought for most wall art in a random cafe, but I imagine the owners are hoping to get something out of it from us. Whether thats satisfaction or manipulating us to spend idk.

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