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Computer composer takes to the stage

David Smith

— PHOTO: AP

Digital orchestra is posing a threat to human creativity.

London: Close your eyes and let the music seep into you: the flutes, oboes and clarinets, the trumpets, horns and trombones, the violins, cellos and harps. Open your eyes and you would expect to see these instruments in full cry — not a computer monitor blinking back at you.

The human orchestra, immaculately dressed in bow ties and elegant dresses, is facing an unprecedented challenge from the heap of wires and microchips in the corner of a room. It is quicker and cheaper, hits every note to perfection and never makes a mistake. The age of the computer composer has arrived. A program developed in Vienna mimics human musicians in the performance of greats such as Bach, Beethoven and Mozart so convincingly that a casual listener to a classical radio station would be unable to tell the difference. Perhaps more importantly, it allows notes — 1.5 million different sounds, to be precise — to be combined in new ways, so that composers can make new music on their laptop without needing to hire an orchestra.

The software offering is by the Vienna Symphonic Library. Each note is the product of years of painstaking recording sessions by leading Austrian musicians.

They attempted to set down the full range of "perfect" single notes from around 100 instruments — more continue to be added — which were then digitally stored in the most extensive musical database of its kind. They are made available to composers — packages range from £500 to £6,000 — who can put selected notes together to create an entire symphony on their PC. —

© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006

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