AI developed as ghostly accompanists on piano, or an imaginary friend

May 12, 2019 11:09 AM

Yamaha's Disklavier recording and reproducing pianos (Wikipedia) were introduced to the U.S. 1987, and more recently added internet connectivity (YouTube), which allowed for Yamaha to offer "piano radio" to play on connected pianos. Pianist and coder Dan Tepfer extended this capacity to make an imaginary friend with AI, to respond to his playing (NPR interview; full visual album on YT), and Icelandic modern classical composer Ólafur Arnalds, with the help of a code-savvy friend (NPR), developed two ghostly pianos to accompany him (NPR Tiny Desk Concert).
posted by filthy light thief (10 comments total)

That tiny desk concert was ethereally stunning, filthy light thief. Thank you for sharing, I really needed that today.
posted by Mizu at 11:40 AM on May 12, 2019

Well that was very lovely. Ólafur Arnalds' music hits me right in the feels every time. I don't think I've ever found music that evokes such a strong emotional response so quickly before.
posted by vernondalhart at 11:43 AM on May 12, 2019

For those interested in the use of AI to make music and art, there’s a new podcast called Sleepwalkers that just did an ep on this with an interesting discussion of AI generated piano music in particular. (disclaimer- the producer is a friend, but I also heard about it independently from listeners so I’m pretty sure it’s not just my bias)
posted by quiet coyote at 11:50 AM on May 12, 2019 [2 favorites]

Where's William Gaddis when you need him?
posted by chavenet at 3:31 PM on May 12, 2019

~your an electron
~your a clavier
~your piano forte
~your a fiddle fugue.


∆
posted by clavdivs at 6:49 PM on May 12, 2019

surely... you're
posted by hippybear at 8:05 PM on May 12, 2019

Ólafur Arnalds is amazing in both talent and range.
posted by a halcyon day at 8:37 PM on May 12, 2019

The one I want is on the balmy side of $200k. Darn.
posted by bz at 8:11 AM on May 13, 2019

This use of Disklaviers to accompany a human player in an improvisational way is nothing new. It’s been going on since the early nineties. People used the music programming environment Max to create programs that could analyze the players notes and then generate suitable notes to go with them. It’s not AI. It’s algorithmic. The music here was nice, beautiful even, but the talk about AI seems to overshadow the music, as it’s more of the “wow, look at what machines can do!” talk. Praise the programmer. Praise the musician who had the idea.
posted by njohnson23 at 8:28 AM on May 13, 2019 [7 favorites]

njohnson23, thanks for the background! Do you have any examples of other musicians who have done this?
posted by filthy light thief at 7:44 PM on May 14, 2019