美国国家公共电台 NPR Pianist And Coder Dan Tepfer Composes Music With The Help Of Artificial Intelligence

 

AILSA CHANG, HOST:

When musician Dan Tepfer was a kid, he taught himself to code on an early Macintosh computer that his dad brought home one day.

DAN TEPFER: What I love about programming is it's so powerful. You can be a little kid, you know, with very little power over the world, and you can tell this very powerful machine to do whatever you want it to do. And it will do it for you, you know, flawlessly over and over again.

CHANG: That little kid grew up to be a world-renowned pianist. And now he's coded another machine - his piano.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

CHANG: What you're hearing is not just Tepfer playing his piano. It's also his piano playing along with him. Let me explain. He wrote a series of algorithms that direct his specially¹ modified piano to respond in certain ways. When he plays, the piano plays back according to the algorithms rules. It's like a duet with phantom² hands or, to put it another way...

I mean, in a way, you've sort of designed this imaginary friend that can play piano with you whenever you want. There's...

TEPFER: I love that.

CHANG: (Laughter).

TEPFER: You know, I'm an only child.

CHANG: (Laughter).

TEPFER: And no one has ever put it that way, but I think you might be getting somewhere (laughter).

CHANG: Tepfer's new album explores the fusion³ of human and machine - a dynamic he says has actually been at the heart of music for centuries.

TEPFER: Let's go way back. If you look at, like, medieval composers like Ockeghem, baroque classical composers like Bach, their music lives at the intersection⁴ of the algorithmic and the spiritual - equal parts rules and equal parts intuition and, you know, for lack of a better word, spirituality.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

TEPFER: So, you know, I spent a lot of time with that idea. And about five years ago, I sat down at one of these Yamaha disklaviers. And I realized - it was a kind of light bulb went off in my head that because the input⁵ for the algorithms is what I played, which, by necessity, has this organic quality because I'm human (laughter)...

CHANG: It's an extension of your aesthetic⁶.

TEPFER: Exactly. It's actually going to be right at that intersection of that emotional quality and also the algorithmic.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

CHANG: I want to hear how this works, so let's just start with something small. I want to hear how the piano reacts to you. So what happens when you play just one note?

TEPFER: Well, you know, it really depends. They're actually 11 different algorithms that I use. There's a track on the record called "Inversion⁷." And in that one, I set up an axis⁸ of symmetry in the middle of the piano. And then everything that I play on one side of the axis gets mirrored onto the other side.

CHANG: Wow.

TEPFER: So maybe - I don't know. I'll play "Mary Had A Little Lamb" or something (laughter).

CHANG: That's pretty simple.

TEPFER: All right. Check this out. So...

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

TEPFER: OK.

CHANG: Wow.

TEPFER: So I'm actually playing only one of those lines. I'm playing the upper line right now. And what you're hearing in the bass⁹ is the response of the piano.

CHANG: I love it. Can you show us, like - stay with "Mary Had A Little Lamb," but get more complex gradually. And explain it as you're going so we can hear how the computer's affecting the melody, the music.

TEPFER: OK. So I'm going to start with the computer responding almost immediately to what I play.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

TEPFER: Now I'm going to make it respond a little later. So if I do this, you'll see...

(SOUNDBITE OF NOTES PLAYING)

CHANG: Right.

TEPFER: It responds...

CHANG: Yup.

TEPFER: ...With a little delay. And suddenly, we have rhythm, which gets me really excited.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

CHANG: That's amazing. It sounds like Mary is drinking a lot of wine and having a great time.

(LAUGHTER)

TEPFER: This is what I love about this the most is I'm imposing¹⁰ a rule on myself. But what you perceive and, actually, what I perceive too as the musician is an emotional result.

CHANG: When you know every keystroke your duet partner will play, does it take away, at some level, from the joy that can come from just improvising¹¹ during a duet with another human from being surprised once in a while by your human partner?

TEPFER: Well, you know, I really love playing with a human partner. And being surprised is so dear to my heart. But these algorithms that I've written, they absolutely still surprise me because I don't think we humans really have the right kind of brainpower to anticipate exactly how these things are going to happen. You know, if I take an algorithm I wrote like the demonic march - I like this one I call the demonic march...

CHANG: Let's hear it.

TEPFER: ...Because it sounds that way to me. You know, I'll do something like...

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

TEPFER: All right.

CHANG: (Laughter).

TEPFER: So I've done that before, and I know what that sounds like. But what if I do something like - I don't know. I'm just going to try to do something random¹².

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

TEPFER: (Laughter) I literally¹³ just surprised myself. I mean...

CHANG: (Laughter).

TEPFER: There's stuff even rhythmically¹⁴ that I wouldn't expect. And, in fact, you know, the first time I sat down and played with these algorithms as I was programming them, there would just be this blissful moment of discovery. But once that initial surprise wore off, I was having trouble really getting that same feeling that we're exploring. And it suddenly dawned on me a couple of years in. I have to be listening to what the piano's doing in exactly the same way as I am listening to a human that I'm playing with. And then from that day on, I didn't have any trouble anymore.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

CHANG: Do you think this method of creating music alongside artificial intelligence will become more and more common? Or do you think it'll always be kind of this novelty?

TEPFER: You know, the history of music is defined, in many ways, by progress and technology. You know, the organ was one of the most complex pieces of tech around when it was developed. And I just can't imagine humans shying away from the possibilities that it brings. And I think over time, the allure¹⁵ of novelty wears off. And then we're left with something much deeper, which is simply how these new tools can open up new artistic¹⁶ horizons to creators.

(SOUNDBITE OF DAN TEPFER'S "CANON AT THE OCTAVE/METRICMOD")

CHANG: Dan Tepfer's new album is called "Natural Machines."

Thank you very much for joining us today.

TEPFER: Thank you so much.

(SOUNDBITE OF DAN TEPFER'S "CANON AT THE OCTAVE/METRICMOD")

1 specially   

adv.特定地；特殊地；明确地

参考例句：

• They are specially packaged so that they stack easily.它们经过特别包装以便于堆放。
• The machine was designed specially for demolishing old buildings.这种机器是专为拆毁旧楼房而设计的。

2 phantom   

n.幻影，虚位，幽灵；adj.错觉的，幻影的，幽灵的

参考例句：

• I found myself staring at her as if she were a phantom.我发现自己瞪大眼睛看着她，好像她是一个幽灵。
• He is only a phantom of a king.他只是有名无实的国王。

3 fusion   

n.溶化；熔解；熔化状态，熔和；熔接

参考例句：

• Brass is formed by the fusion of copper and zinc. 黄铜是通过铜和锌的熔合而成的。
• This alloy is formed by the fusion of two types of metal.这种合金是用两种金属熔合而成的。

4 intersection   

n.交集，十字路口，交叉点；[计算机] 交集

参考例句：

• There is a stop sign at an intersection.在交叉路口处有停车标志。
• Bridges are used to avoid the intersection of a railway and a highway.桥用来避免铁路和公路直接交叉。

5 input   

n.输入(物)；投入；vt.把(数据等)输入计算机

参考例句：

• I will forever be grateful for his considerable input.我将永远感激他的大量投入。
• All this information had to be input onto the computer.所有这些信息都必须输入计算机。

6 aesthetic   

adj.美学的，审美的，有美感

参考例句：

• My aesthetic standards are quite different from his.我的审美标准与他的大不相同。
• The professor advanced a new aesthetic theory.那位教授提出了新的美学理论。

7 inversion   

n.反向，倒转，倒置

参考例句：

• But sometimes there is an unusual weather condition called a temperature inversion.但有时会有一种被称作“温度逆增”的不平常的天气状态。
• And finally,we made a discussion on the problems in the cooperative inversion.最后，对联合反演中存在的问题进行了讨论。

8 axis   

n.轴，轴线，中心线；坐标轴，基准线

参考例句：

• The earth's axis is the line between the North and South Poles.地轴是南北极之间的线。
• The axis of a circle is its diameter.圆的轴线是其直径。

9 bass   

n.男低音(歌手)；低音乐器；低音大提琴

参考例句：

• He answered my question in a surprisingly deep bass.他用一种低得出奇的声音回答我的问题。
• The bass was to give a concert in the park.那位男低音歌唱家将在公园中举行音乐会。

10 imposing   

adj.使人难忘的，壮丽的，堂皇的，雄伟的

参考例句：

• The fortress is an imposing building.这座城堡是一座宏伟的建筑。
• He has lost his imposing appearance.他已失去堂堂仪表。

11 improvising   

即兴创作（improvise的现在分词形式）

参考例句：

• I knew he was improvising, an old habit of his. 我知道他是在即兴发挥，这是他的老习惯。
• A few lecturers have been improvising to catch up. 部分讲师被临时抽调以救急。

12 random   

adj.随机的；任意的；n.偶然的(或随便的)行动

参考例句：

• The list is arranged in a random order.名单排列不分先后。
• On random inspection the meat was found to be bad.经抽查，发现肉变质了。

13 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

14 rhythmically   

adv.有节奏地

参考例句：

• A pigeon strutted along the roof, cooing rhythmically. 一只鸽子沿着屋顶大摇大摆地走，有节奏地咕咕叫。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Exposures of rhythmically banded protore are common in the workings. 在工作面中常见有韵律条带“原矿石”。 来自辞典例句

15 allure   

n.诱惑力，魅力；vt.诱惑，引诱，吸引

参考例句：

• The window displays allure customers to buy goods.橱窗陈列品吸引顾客购买货物。
• The book has a certain allure for which it is hard to find a reason.这本书有一种难以解释的魅力。

16 artistic   

adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的

参考例句：

• The picture on this screen is a good artistic work.这屏风上的画是件很好的艺术品。
• These artistic handicrafts are very popular with foreign friends.外国朋友很喜欢这些美术工艺品。