Life in A Minor: Computers are Not People

By Broadside Columnist Andy Minor

I've stumbled across something this week that almost chills me to my musical core: the YouTube commercial for Microsoft Songsmith. If you haven't seen this thing yet, do a YouTube search for Microsoft Songsmith, find the four minute and seventeen second commercial and watch it.

If you were working on an active scale of things that are lame, one being never-lame Empire Strikes Back and 10 being the too-lame-to-be-true ShamWow, the YouTube ad for Microsoft Songsmith is a full blown 10, maybe even a 10.5.

The people in this ad look lame, act lame, and good grammar aside, sing lame. It's embarrassing to sit and watch the whole thing; every time I do (which is not that often) I'm worried my roommates will walk in and I'll have to explain what I'm doing and why there are so many lame people on my computer. It's worse than a guilty pleasure—the Microsoft Songsmith ad just makes me feel guilty.

If you've never heard of Microsoft Songsmith before and are too scared to go watch the commercial, let me explain the premise. Songsmith is a program that is designed to make songwriting as easy as shaking hands. You sing into a microphone attached to your computer while Songsmith plays a drum track to keep tempo.

After you're done singing, Songsmith will internalize your melody, interpret it in the most sophisticated way possible and play back for you a completed song with your voice over it. Do I approve of Microsoft trying to make music more accessible for everyone? Yes. Do I approve of putting artistic license in the hands of computers? Not at all.

To illustrate how unbelievably bad computers are at music, one need go no further than the related videos to the right of the Microsoft Songsmith YouTube commercial. Here you will see videos of people who have taken the vocal tracks to several excellent songs and allowed Songsmith to reinterpret them.

The Police's “Roxanne” becomes a jaunty, Tito Puente-esque samba in hiding, as opposed to the rhythmically diverse original. “White Wedding” by Billy Idol becomes a bluegrass standard, casting aside electro-punk sounds and devil-may-care attitudes in the name of banjos and washboards. Perhaps the most offensive one is The Beatles’ classic “Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band” as a laid-back lounge jazz tune, which mixes with Paul McCartney's heaving vocals like oil mixes with water.

Go listen—you'll quickly learn a computer, no matter how sophisticated, does not possess even comparable powers with a human ear. Even if you had never heard these songs before, you would know that the backgrounds Songsmith assigned them are completely incorrect.

Maybe I'm just so appalled by the fact that Songsmith seems to take something I've worked so hard to develop and market it like you can master it in an afternoon. It might be fun to play around with, but in the end Songsmith is nothing more than a technological toy and will turn you into a musician as fast as an iPod will. If Microsoft had the gumption to advertise Songsmith not as a songwriting device but as a toy, I wouldn't have as much of a problem.

Yet this is not the case; Microsoft seems to think it's alright to tell people they can write songs using Songsmith and nothing else. And I guess you could, but would they be good songs? I believe those YouTube videos I just mentioned should answer that quite thoroughly.

And now, for the quintessence of a selfish, shameless plug, I'd like to extend an invitation to all of you readers to come see probably the musical event of the semester: my tuba recital. Some of you may not know this, but I do a lot more with music than just listen to it and complain about it. I've played the tuba for about ten years now, and I've thrown together some of my favorite musical friends to play for you this week.

There will be something for everyone, from Mozart to Miles Davis, and if you read my column every week it might not be a bad idea to come see that I know what I'm talking about. Before I boast myself any further, I'll end here with the specs of the event: Thursday, Feb. 26 at 7 p.m. It'll be in the Grand Tier III of the Center for the Arts (the concert hall—take the elevator in the lobby up to the third floor).

Are you broke? Good news—it's free! Do you have class? Good news—you can skip it! I'd love to see you all there, even if I don't know who you are. It will be your only chance to hear me play all semester, so take full advantage of it.