This is a provocative question: Can software be a substitute for raw musical talent? The question was exposed in the blog post a couple days ago on How Can a Programmer Help You Compose Music?" That blog post includes this statement:
"As much as my heart is into making software tools for musicians who compose and arrange music, if I could write music straight from my head to paper, I'd trade that talent and skill for Notation Composer which, in some sense, I developed to compensate for my less than ideal inner ear."
Peter McAleer replied:
"It's absolutely no substitute for raw musical talent, however!"
Oh, with much respect to Peter, I must disagree. If we changed the order of a few words around in Peter's statement, I would agree:
It's no absolute substitute for raw musical talent, however!
That is, no software will make music flow out of an untalented musician that compares well in quality to music flowing out of a musical genius. However, software can significantly help a musician with any degree of musical talent produce better music. It's a matter of degree, not absolutes.
The statement that tools are no substitute for raw musical talent is unnecessarily discouraging to millions of musicians who might be tempted to expand their music making beyond performing music written by others. These musicians should be encouraged to arrange and write their own music!
A counterargument to this is that the masses should not be flooding the Internet and airways with poorly conceived and performed music. That's the perspective of listeners. Those who appreciate music through listening should not be overly concerned that the good music will be buried in a heap of bad music. There are natural Darwinian market forces that weed out most of the truly poor music, whether free or commercial.
There are at least two other perspectives here besides that of the listener that are important.
First, there is the perspective of musical communities. Think of all of the small groups of musicians who jam together, arrange their music, and even perform music written by members of their groups. For them, the most important aspect of their activity isn't the quality of their music, which is directly related to their raw musical talent (and also how much time they practice). For them, the most important thing is the camaraderie of making music together. If one of the members brings in an arrangement or a piece he composed himself, the group takes a special interest in exploring that music. This is also happening in online communities, which I'll describe in a separate blog post.
Second, there is the perspective of musical self-expression, which validity is partly separate from the perspective of the listener. The musician has something to say. He can say it by adding his interpretation of music written by someone else, in his performance of that music, or by rearranging the music. He can also express himself by writing new music, that might resemble the music of others, or which might be quite unique. Although a composer typically wants his music to be heard, that is only part of why he composes. For many composers, the activity of composing is itself what is most valuable.
Software indeed can be a substitute for raw musical talent. For example, a jazz pianist might be able to improvise fantastic music, but he might lack the talent and skill to re-play his improvisation in his inner ears to write down the notes. That jazz pianist can now improvise on, say, an acoustical Yamaha Disklavier and record his MIDI notes. He can turn his improvisation into a polished composition with note corrections, copy and paste.
As another example, the composer who is searching for musical self-expression can accelerate his progress by using software tools, perhaps most importantly because the software can immediately play back the notes he's written. That's a fantastic substitute for lack of a perfect inner ear.
Finally, looking at this another way: Software can help a musician uncover talent he doesn't realize he has.
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That's a refreshing comment, David.
Playing for pleasure-- as well as writing, rearranging and remixing) music for pleasure-- are highly worthy pastimes. It is not a contradiction to admire other highly talented musicians and, at the same time, enjoy making music at a much less proficient level with a few friends or privately.
For example, it's natural to be inspired to play [name your instrument] after hearing a pro, or to want to write your own music after being inspired by someone else's. This suggests that it's not just musical perfection that captures our hearts, but also the underlying emotion that can shine through imperfection. We pay money to hear a pro musician express the underlying emotion nearly perfectly; we make music ourselves to most intimately experience the emotion coming from within ourselves.
A related issue is the emphasis on professionalism in music-making, often heard in the phrases "commercial quality," "radio ready," or "major-label sound." These phrases are used as compliments, but what they really mean is that the work has sales appeal. Playing for pleasure is not considered.
How many times have you met someone who mumbles, "Oh, I used to play [instrument name], but I'm not really a musician"? Somehow we got implanted with the idea that if we're not making money from our music, we're not real musicians.
That mercantile attitude is reflected in the way we evaluate musicians based on factors like how fast, flashily, or accurately they can play. One of my favorite quotes came from Jerry Garcia after he was notified he'd won some "best guitarist" poll. He said something like, "Well, thanks very much, but I never realized music was a competition."
So I think the question of whether software can substitute for talent is not as interesting or useful as asking, How can software help people release the music inside themselves? I suspect it may be as much a social challenge as a technological one.
As a musician, this is an interesting topic that is definitely not going away in this new era of minimal funding for producing albums. Having worked with a relatively well known producer who focuses almost entirely on analog equipment, there is definitely an unheard quality to analog production. There are definite recognizable features such as natural compression from vacuum tubes. But there is also a natural benefit in getting a perfect performance. This is a subtle trait of many older albums that may not be totally understood today. It is so easy to fix a missed drum hit or copy a vocal phrase that it becomes a necessity when getting things right on tape would simply cost too much.
The perception of this kind of quality I've always attribute not to what a listener can hear, but what they ignore. Drums are a great example where each hit needs to be at the right moment, otherwise the song can sound sloppy, awkward or lose essential impact. Likewise, there are artists that feed off this struggled sound, that make electronic tools difficult to use. In either case, software tools can be very helpful, although I don't know that it is always to the understood benefit of the listener.
Finally, this quote:
"There are natural Darwinian market forces that weed out most of the truly poor music, whether free or commercial."
Is not correct. I agree that there are forces to weed out music, but calling them Darwinian is misleading. The truth is the gatekeepers of the music world are more like gatekeepers of the Web. Without getting a domain name, utilizing the DNS system, marketing to search engines (google) and speaking HTML to all browsers, you have no hope of publishing content to those that might be willing to listen. In the music industry it is no different. The keys to the gates are rarely based on simple quality driven metrics, but rather reputation, relationships and most of financial opportunity.
This doesn't meant that great artists are not recognized, but simply saying that natural selection occurs based on listeners opinions doesn't reflect the massive system in place to help shape the music offered to choose from.