In Saturday’s (6/23) The Scotsman (Scotland), Tiffany Jenkins writes, “Good artists do not pander to audience tastes, they shape it.” Her statement rebukes a recent attempt by scientists from Imperial College London to link the development of music composition to evolutionary theory. A program created by Dr. Bob MacCallum (a mosquito researcher at Imperial College) called “DarwinTunes” produces loops of 100 tunes, which listeners score in the batches of 20 on a five-point scale. The program then “mates” the top chosen loops, resulting in more “evolved” musical combinations based on consumer choice—which, the researchers say, is a creative force itself. Jenkins writes in response, “Although the creative act is more than the work of one individual, the extra factor is not the market, which cannot be relied on to produce greatness; one reason why the arts benefit from philanthropy and state funding. Composers can only move a tradition forward with some level of consensus in relation to the mood of the times. This makes it a sophisticated social activity, rather than one determined by fragmented, individual responses—which is what you get with DarwinTunes.”
Posted June 27, 2012
