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I gave every train in New York an instrument

trainjazz.com

61–70 of 78 posts

Re: I gave every train in New York an instrument

#61
post #59
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…

Well, you forgot that AI bad! I sent my friend an AI generated album and he loved it, until I mentioned it was AI generated, and then he went a bit pale.

I remember a story about someone my parents told me. They really liked a certain musician (forgot which one, I was told the story like 30 years ago), then my parents mentioned that the musician was gay and then the friend stopped listening to him for some homophobic reason.

Re: I gave every train in New York an instrument

#62

Can someone explain what triggers a note? I don't understand from the explanation on the site. Is it whenever a train on the line crosses a predetermined geo-location? What do the technical details look like behind this to get the data?

If you switch to bar view on the bottom, it will be more apparent.

Each line in that view represents a subway line's route. Each note/dot along each of those lines is a train that is currently at that stage of progression through the route (based on geo location from the MTA).

They assigned a different instrument to each subway line.

Re: I gave every train in New York an instrument

#64

Can someone explain what triggers a note? I don't understand from the explanation on the site. Is it whenever a train on the line crosses a predetermined geo-location? What do the technical details look like behind this to get the data?

I think every line’s route is normalized to the same length of time, and a note is played when trains are at stations along that route.

If you turn on the map portion of the UI, you can see where the stations are. This is why there’s a dearth of notes over the east river (no stations on the water), other than the one stop at Roosevelt Island, for the F or the M, depending on the time of day.

Re: I gave every train in New York an instrument

#66
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…

To me the question is more about why you'd do something. I'm sure that there's a lot of AI generated music I might enjoy, but I'm turned off by why it exists.

AI generated music isn't out there as some experiment by some artists, trying to make sense of something, make a statement, or just for the sheer enjoyment of creating something. It's there because of money. I know, there are exceptions, and I'm fine with those.

The AI music I'm against is the type that's made by the likes of Spotify, because they don't want to pay artists. It's music that only exists because Spotify would like to make more money. That motivation, to me, corrupts the product. AI music isn't created for the sake of creating music, it's created as a means towards a goal, money. I don't think that the management at Spotify particularly cares about music, it's just a means on the path to money. If they could be more profitable selling something else they would.

You can argue that a lot of bands solely exists because a record labels wanted to create a profit generating device, or that some artists are artificially created and wouldn't survive without auto-tune and a media machine pushing their music. I think that's bad as well, but often many of these artists do have some level of talent and actually do care about music.

Re: I gave every train in New York an instrument

#70

I love jazz but it's kind of funny how much this actually sounds like a really experimental jazz recording. But then, jazz is sometimes spoken of as expressing the rhythms, sounds, and emotions of the modern city.

Jazz was explained to me as musicians having a conversation using their instruments.
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