 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: ruben
Date: 2026-03-10 00:24
What if we had a Beethoven clarinet Concerto composed by AI? -a third Brahms sonata and a Seconde Rhapsodie by Debussy? Would it be ethical to play these pieces. Is this a conceivable scenario?
rubengreenbergparisfrance@gmail.com
Post Edited (2026-03-10 00:25)
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Author: kdk
Date: 2026-03-10 00:28
Would anyone listen to the performances (maybe past the first one for curiosity's sake)?
Karl
Post Edited (2026-03-10 00:28)
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Author: brycon
Date: 2026-03-10 01:19
I wrote a movement of a "Beethoven clarinet sonata" for fun (using a theme from a catalog of ones Beethoven discarded). For the most part, it works okay on a late 18th-century clarinet and Viennese piano and sounds Beethoven-esque.
As I understand it, current AI can create music only by patching together recordings: it can't read music and therefore compose.
But in a future where AI can compose, I think most people would nevertheless be turning to the arts for human-to-human experiences. Perhaps as AI becomes more thoroughly integrated in some domains (costumer service, logistics, medicine, etc.), others will become more of a refuge for strictly human interaction (dining, sports, arts, etc.). And it seems as though these dynamics would have more of an effect on AI in the arts than the ethics of it. Moreover, as it stands, it isn't super difficult to write music in the style of Beethoven or Debussy. And even though there are more than a few musicians now who can do it, there's basically no market for it. So alas, I don't believe we're going to have an explosion of AI Beethoven clarinet sonatas in the near future.
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Author: JohnP
Date: 2026-03-10 01:57
When I was at school in Leeds, UK, 57 years ago, my school music teacher wrote me a clarinet concerto in the style of early Beethoven which I performed with the school orchestra. It was recorded too but, stupidly I didn’t keep the score and didn’t get hold of the recording. I’m not sure now how good it was.
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Author: Fuzzy
Date: 2026-03-10 03:50
This was purportedly created by Suni AI:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8uFaOJC9eE
Asking a question as an aside:
Why would they design AI to come after the arts first?
Digital photography destroyed the worth of the photographer, because now anyone could be a photographer. There are very few great photographers now - but millions of mediocre photographers with access to tech that makes the difference negligible in the end product.
I don't see why music, media art, writing, or any other art will be spared a similar fate.
I'm not worried for those of us who are old(er) now...but what will inspire the youth of the future to sacrifice hours and days, weeks, and years into being excellent, when their 8-year-old neighbor will have the tools to make an approximate result that is "good enough" for most and will win in the market?
The average person on the street won't be able to hear the difference between trained folks and the 8-year-old with AI. One costs a bunch to produce and sell, and one is free. Which one is sustainable? Obtainable?
(I sincerely hope I am wrong...perhaps in the future there will be a rebound effect where humanity yearns for humanity?)
Fuzzy
;^)>>>
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Author: kdk
Date: 2026-03-10 06:01
Fuzzy wrote:
> The average person on the street won't be able to hear the
> difference between trained folks and the 8-year-old with AI.
> One costs a bunch to produce and sell, and one is free. Which
> one is sustainable? Obtainable?
>
I think that's the way it has been for at least the past 75 years. Don't limit your thinking to "Classical" music - the pop/rock/jazz market has been overrun by silly, unbeautiful, unmeaningful schlock since the 1950s. Has there been good among the dreck? Sure, but most listeners have no criteria by which to make a judgement. "It's got a good beat" is all I heard from my pre-teen years until the very present. AI generated schlock will make people happy who don't understand what they're hearing (in any genre or style) while there will always, I think, be a market for genuine human communication, regardless of the genre. There may not be a livable income available from it, but musicians have until the mid 1950s or so always had to scramble for a living. We've come up in an exceptional age for art in general and for music in particular because of the available wealth in the U.S. and in Europe that supported it.
Karl
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