Music composition in the 21st Century: exploring concertgoers’ aesthetic response to AI-generated music.
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Date
2021
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Abstract
We live in the information age where digitisation and computational technology have become integral
and indispensable to our daily activities. Artificial intelligence (AI), quantum computing, and other such
technologies increasingly impact and disrupt our lives as we connect with our world. Within the arts, a
field once dominated by human creation, we now experience a penetration of AI and deep learning
technologies. The researcher, a practising musician, became interested in how our ubiquitous
interaction with AI technology affects our decision-making and how it relates specifically to the field of
music composition. The manifestation of AI’s impact on music-making was met with the researcher’s
excitement and trepidation. Given the researcher’s apprehension, he proposed investigating (1) the
quality of AI creativity in the field of music composition and (2) how transparency of this AI creative
employment affects aesthetic judgement. He designed his research using a mixed methods approach,
comprising a quantitative phase in the form of an online questionnaire (based on the original
AESTHEMOS instrument), followed by a qualitative phase of in-depth interviews. The researcher’s
objectives were twofold: (1) to establish if a sample of concertgoers could discern aesthetically between
compositions generated by humans and AI and (2) how knowledge of AI use during the compositional
process affects our aesthetic appreciation of the artefacts. The researcher partly hypothesised that
participants could not discern aesthetically between human and AI-generated compositions because of
current available AI technology (through machine and deep learning). However, when AI employment is
disclosed, aesthetic responses to compositions yield a negative response. To test his hypothesis, the
researcher engaged thirty concertgoers in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, to evaluate aesthetically five
symphonic works via an online questionnaire. During the follow-up interview process, the AI generation
of two of the five compositions was disclosed, and general attitudes toward AI creativity was probed.
Using data analytic tools such as the Mann-Whitney U test, the researcher confirmed his hypothesis
and concluded that participants interact aesthetically with AI-generated compositions if they appear to
be human-composed. Transparency of AI involvement, however, affects the aesthetic value of AIgenerated
compositions. As AI weaves itself deeper into the human story, the familiarity of AI creativity
will profoundly affect our notion of creativity, meaning and art creation of the future.
Description
Masters degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.