Actually, it was my robot… 6/22/21
In the art world, there will always be some degree of virtuoso worship. We view important figures as having achieved a high level of brilliance, which is expressed through their work. We ourselves, as artists, may find the idea of being respected by (or even impressive to) our peers as a powerful source of motivation in our own work.
With this orientation of wanting to give or receive credit/respect/adoration for a job well done, those lines are blurred when technology enters the scene. When music software is generating musical ideas, like rhythms, chords, melodies; then who gets the “credit” for the resulting work? Perhaps, this question can be framed differently; I.e., What is the focus or purpose of the work?
ChordJam is one of several apps/plugins that generate chords and chord progressions. This app does allow a user to make very detailed choices, but it also has quite a few options for random generation. What follows is a paraphrased portion of a comment thread under an article announcing the app, that appeared on the Synthtopia site at the end of May 2021:
“Coco” asks: “So who’s writing the music? .. the musician or the machine?”
“Dacci Pucci” responds: “It’s electronic music, it’s been machine music since day 1. Nobody writes it, it’s generated by circuits and algorithms and then curated by the musician. That’s what we like about it.”
“Coco” fires back: “No you’re wrong. The instrument is just a tool we use to realize the music we’ve got sloshing around in our head, whether it’s electronic or not… the point is that the idea originates with the composer… whether we use a comb and a bit of paper or a full blown Moog modular doesn’t make any difference… all of my synths just sit there and wait for me to write/play something on them. […]
Self-generating music software such as this that suggests chords and melodies is just colour-by-numbers… you may as well make a big gameshow wheel and give it a spin.. ‘And the winning chord is…. Bbm!!!!!’… it can be argued that this is just a step further than looking up something in a book [… or ] a chart of the circle of fifths in order to work out where to go but I’d refute [sic] that in saying that a book or chart is truly passive and relies on YOU to interpret the info and make a compositional decision… software such as this just spoon-feeds you and all you’re left to do is swipe left or swipe right… yes – I like that chord sequence or no I don’t.
“Dacci Pucci” concludes: “Well, Coco, that’s *your* definition of electronic music, but it certainly is not everyone’s. The concept of authorship that you describe and that stems from European classical music has been discarded by or is unknown to many musical schools and traditions, especially in the electronic field. Many creators of techno, noise, ambient or avant-garde music do not consider themselves as composers, or even artists, but rather as operators, programmers or producers. They operate and program machines to produce a product. Computer generated music has been performed since the late 1950s. Tekno artists in the 1990s played shows behind black walls to stay anonymous and eliminate every personalization of music. And in Berghain, it’s insignificant who made the music, why they made it and which tools they used, the only thing that matters is the function of the music at the location it was made for. So in conclusion, there are many fields of music were the use of generative and automated tools is not considered “cheating” or „uncreative“, because the traditional (western) concepts of authorship and creativity are rejected in the first place.”