I'm worried!

[AndrewScott]

I despair for the future of musicians.
Orchestral sound samples have become so good I often find myself wondering as I listen to a movie score whether the recording used real musicians or was it all produced from a computer.
And if I as musician can't tell the difference what about the general public?
How long before real musicians aren't required anymore for recordings because the samples are so much cheaper and sound just as good?

Any thoughts?

[mojobone]

They still have to have somebody to sample, right? Just be that guy.

This kinda puts me in mind of the 19th-century music critic who despaired for music's future, stating that all the songs had been written, all the notes used up. This happened about the same time as that guy wanting to close the patent office, because everything had been invented, already.

I have drums and I play drums; if I didn't already think like a drummer, I doubt the sampled kits I have would be of much use. (at least, not as much) Fact is, I'm also a string and wind player and sampled strings and winds are woefully inadequate for executing complex runs with accents and differing articulations in realtime; mocking up a string/wind ensemble takes forever, as compared to rehearsing and recording some good musicians, which helpfully enough is also way faster to mix.

Maybe there will be fewer positions for musicians who don't deal with technology, but there will always be a place for great musicians and great music, at least until we can put a beanie on a guy and hear the music in his head. (it's my understanding that this is in the works)

but until that day, even George Jetson still has to push the buttons.

[AndrewScott]

I'm reassured by your point about the execution of complex runs with accents and differing articulations in realtime - that task being slower on a DAW than with an orchestra.
On a DAW forum I also read about a programmer who was having trouble routing his 60 different articulated trumpet samples in the one project.
Maybe my concern is ill-founded.

[Casey H]

I despair for the future of musicians.
Orchestral sound samples have become so good I often find myself wondering as I listen to a movie score whether the recording used real musicians or was it all produced from a computer.
And if I as musician can't tell the difference what about the general public?
How long before real musicians aren't required anymore for recordings because the samples are so much cheaper and sound just as good?

Any thoughts?

How do we know YOU are a real person and not a computer? (Kidding!)

Seriously, what mojo said.

Casey

[mikemichnya]

I first had that thought years ago when I was walking through a hotel lobby and heard some really nice solo piano coming from the grand piano in the corner, and it turned out to be software playing and not an actual musician.

Since then, computers have gotten faster and more sophisticated, and it may only be a matter of time before they take over the world. Mwha-ha-ha... (evil mad scientist laughter ) Chess computers have been beating the worlds best chess players since the mid 90's, a chatterbot successfully passed the Turing Test last year for the first time (it's controversial, and not a terribly high bar, but still...), computers have all but replaced the first line of phone customer sevice just about everywhere ("I can help you with that!"), we now have Dick Tracy wrist TV's and google is developing a self-driving car...

But I'm with Mojo & Casey on this.

I think we musicians are safe for awhile. In addition to Mojo's points, computers don't dance very well on stage yet, they're not anywhere near as attractive as most stars, and as far as I can tell, it's still humans who are programming them.

[AndrewScott]

I was walking through a hotel lobby and heard some really nice solo piano coming from the grand piano in the corner, and it turned out to be software playing and not an actual musician

See how good software is getting?
I'm not worried about computers replacing live musicians in concert, but it seems that for session work, we'll be less and less required, as more work goes to Hollywood Strings and Vienna Sounds.
The underlying motivation of producers when commissioning music will always be "where can I get this done cheaper?"
If the answer to that question is a programmer with a few Gb of sound samples, then session musos are doomed like horseshoe makers and blacksmiths following the advent of the automobile.

[Cruciform]

On self-driving cars, there are some major hurdles to overcome first, and intriguingly they're not tech barriers...http://techxplore.com/news/2015-10-self ... hical.html

[AndrewScott]

On self-driving cars, there are some major hurdles to overcome first, and intriguingly they're not tech barriers...http://techxplore.com/news/2015-10-self ... hical.html

It's a bit irrelevant, but an interesting point nevertheless. I never thought about the ethical issues of driver-less cars . It prompts another question, also irrelevant to this thread - if a a driver less car inures someone or damages property, who is liable? The software installer (I was just following orders), the algorithm developer, the legislators who approve the adoption of the code, ???
I think we need not only a new thread but a different forum for this topic.

[mikeymike2000]

There will always be a need for real physical humans in the physical world.

Things are changing but we too must change with the things. A few years back I heard a Hollywood session player say the same thing, "there is no work anymore".

You just have to change with the times.

There is an adage in the business world that goes something like: "If you keep doing business the same way as you are today, 5 years from now you won't be in business".

Re-invent yourself.

At least you see what is happening so you can make adjustments. Don't be like the guy above who one day realizes the world has changed when he wasn't looking and not have any plan as to what to do.

[Paulie]

I'll take the grumpier old man approach to this topic. Musicians are largely doomed. Work is disappearing at an alarming rate, ask anyone that works in theater (one of the last mainstays for instrumentalists). Friends of mine in New York, LA, Nashville, Vegas, etc. are all suffering because of canned music. There will always be work for some musicians, but the number of working musicians will continue to decline.

And, as less real music is available for kids to listen to, the less little musician wannabes we have that grow up into performing adults.It's a self-feeding cycle... the tools we have at our disposal are amazing, some libraries are almost impossible to tell apart from the real thing. As a sax player I think my peeps are safe for many years still, but look how few sax solos there have been in pop music the past ten years. So maybe I'm wrong.

Clubs don't want jazz, because jazz musicians usually have poor friends that hang out and nurse a beer for a couple of hours, which doesn't help the club owner. So, the club owner raises prices to attract a different crowd, but locks out the future in the process.

Today's pop music is almost all electronic, so thanks to quantization, auto tune, etc. it's fairly easy to generate something that the common man will listen too, which waters down the quality out there in the world. People stop practicing musical things like scales, arpeggios, long tones, repertoire, etc., the classics fall by the wayside (jazz standards, classical standards, rock classics, etc.)

Social media takes our largely ADD nation and fuels the ADD fire... shrinking attention spans that crave instant gratification are the norm. Have you tried to watch cartoons lately? Compare them to things like the old Road Runner, Bugs Bunny, Scooby Doo and the rest. Everything today is hyper, spazmatic, fast and lashy. Because that's what kids need in order to maintain any sort of focus. We are fueling a national ADD epidemic at the expense of our culture, history, art, etc. Who today has the patience to listen to an entire symphony or go to the ballet or opera? Hell, we can't even watch Bugs Bunny conducting anymore because Saturday cartoons are gone.

Wow... this turned into a rant... must be the long travel day and lack of food. Ending rant now.