ytliek wrote:
...computer generated Irish music leaves out the "experience," or rather the aesthetic moment. The encounter and engagement of musicians, humans, in performance with spontaneity of audience to the music.
Well, you could say the same thing about human-composed tunes rendered in midi format. You could say the same thing about sheet music. The CG tunes are simply tunes that happen to be generated (composed, if you like) by a program; it is not a given that they must therefore be played only electronically - that is not the meaning of "generated", here - and there's certainly nothing to stop humans from learning and playing them, as is amply demonstrated in the Soundcloud link where they're being played by real, live,
experienced people on real Trad instruments, and in quite a satisfying way at that. The aesthetic moment is entirely there, and the CG tune structures are so spot-on Trad that you can almost smell the crubeens. Seriously, you wouldn't know they were CG if you weren't told. If the tunes were inauthentic-sounding, I daresay the musicians wouldn't have wasted their time on them.
I'm beginning to suspect that people who say it sounds robotic and lacking in humanity haven't even listened to the Soundcloud link. If you take it upon yourselves to bother, I think you'll be surprised. I was.
My issue is more with the question of how we judge the worth of such tunes. Are we to value an insentient program equally with human sweat and inspiration? Are we to say that beauty is its own justification, regardless? Should it even matter? That's the elephant in the room, and I don't have any ready insights. In the end it depends on you. I suppose that some CG tunes might even get adopted naturally into the Tradition, but I'm suspecting that no matter how good they are - and some are downright delightful - so long as they are known to be CG tunes they will more likely be held at arm's length, but it would be on general principle, as the tunes themselves do indeed pass muster on their own merits. That is part of my reason for pointing out, earlier, the potential for plagiarism, because now there is no guarantee that the next new tune you hear and like will really have the human authorship it's purported to have.
So while I'm greatly impressed by the results - no issues there - I'm also faced with existential reservations about their currency.