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thefaux 4 days ago

The wonder of Bach goes much deeper than just the aesthetic qualities of his music. His genius almost forces one to reckon with his historical context and wonder, how did he do it? Why did he do it? What made it all possible? Then there is the incredible influence that he had. It is easy to forget that music theory as we know it today was not formalized in his day. The computer programs that simulate the kind of music he made are based on that theory that he understood intuitively and wove into his music and was later revealed through diligent study. Everyone who studies Bach learns something profound and can feel both a kinship for his humanity and also an alienation from his seemingly impossible genius. He is one of the most mysterious figures in human history and one could easily spend their entire life primarily studying just his music (and that of his descendants). From that perspective, computer generated music in his style is just a leaf on the tree, but Bach himself is the seed.

> These people haven't suffered from the fact that mass production of media is cheap, they've benefited from it.

Maybe? This really depends on your value system. Every moment that you are focused on how you look on camera and trying to optimize an extractive algorithm is a moment you aren't focused on creating the best music that you can in that moment. If the goal is maximizing profit to ensure survival, perhaps they are thriving. Put another way, if these people were free to create music in any context, would they choose content creation on social media? I know I wouldn't, but I also am sympathetic to the economic imperatives.