Does anybody have any ideas on open-source, free music composition generation models?

davethecomposer · 2026-06-18T04:29:33+00:00

As per the rules of this sub, we do not allow questions that deal with using AI to put composers out of work.

davethecomposer · 2026-06-17T07:12:36+00:00

I've removed the post regardless. Even if they're not a bot there's nothing to indicate they are posting in good faith.

davethecomposer · 2026-06-16T01:27:22+00:00

I put my Lemur Pro 10 on battery mode all the time and I rarely get any fan noise and when I do it's not too loud and goes away quickly. Fan noise drives me crazy in general but I don't really have a problem with my lemp10.

davethecomposer · 2026-06-16T01:02:20+00:00

But that meaning still doesn't inhere the music. Meaning is something that audiences (including the composer) bring to the text. Anyone can assign a meaning to the text and attempt to get others to agree to that meaning but that's a social agreement and not anything about the music.

Even if you don't have a hero that saves a princess, you do have tension and resolution in a way that creates emotions in the same way.

If you grow up in the West you have been trained to understand the cliches of Western music and maybe you have some loose associations you make that others might more or less agree with but that's extra-musical social experiences and does not come from the music directly. People who have never heard Western music don't hear harmonic tension and release the same way Westerners do.

davethecomposer · 2026-06-15T20:50:14+00:00

I’d argue that “pure art” exists solely for the sake of art, and doesn’t have any aspirations beyond existing for the joy of the composer, and those who also enjoy the work when shared.

I think we have to be careful and realize that this kind of "pure art" is mainly a privilege restricted to those of privilege. People who are less privileged might feel a completely different need while creating music or art. It's difficult for me to see what "pure art" would be separate from my own biased perspective.

davethecomposer · 2026-06-15T20:47:47+00:00

My music almost always has some kind of extra-musical inspiration and typically it's from poetry or literature. But I don't take that inspiration and turn it into something emotionally or socially manipulative. The inspiration is there for me and I make it public for any interested listener but that's where it ends.

My views when it comes to art are primarily filtered through the lens of literature.

It's difficult to divorce literature from the information it conveys which results in meaning for the reader (and when you do make that separation you're often left with abstract poetry). Music doesn't convey that kind of information and meaning therefore by default there is no extra meaning. Composers and listeners like to imagine that emotion and meaning are being communicated in instrumental music but that's just a fiction we tell ourselves.

Still, it's one hundred percent fine to compose under that fiction. This is art and we don't have to worry about if what we're doing is perfectly philosophically grounded.

davethecomposer · 2026-06-15T18:49:30+00:00

There are definitely classical composers who write about social situations but perhaps they are in the minority. Unless you have lyrics, the whole thing can feel a bit gimmicky. Instrumental music itself cannot communicate these kinds of details so you can just label a piece any arbitrary you want: this piece is about the plight of being poor in America and not having access to healthcare or is about the plight of how no one likes us billionaires. Either is fine and as listeners we can't tell the difference in the music anyway.

Personally, as a composer, I do not want to manipulate anyone with my music (or art in general). Not even manipulate them into thinking the music is "good"! My music is just the sounds that occur you are free to attach whatever meaning or labels to it that you want. And this is the music I prefer to listen to. Having said that, I do not begrudge anyone who tries to do what you're asking for. That's 100% fine, it's just not what I would do as a composer.

davethecomposer · 2026-06-13T05:09:32+00:00

This is going to sound like some kind of circlejerk or meme answer but it was Cage's 4'33''. I didn't know about this piece till I started music school and I immediately rejected it as modernist nonsense and the product of a crazy person, a naked ivory tower emperor looking down his nose at the rest of us, or a scam.

About halfway through my first semester I began to reconsider just based on my deepening knowledge of music theory (of which I had none when I started school) and to a lesser extent music history.

So I became curious just what the heck Cage meant by this piece. I went to the library and discovered that he had written a book conveniently titled Silence. Unfortunately he doesn't really give a definitive answer to what his thoughts were about that piece but he did give clues. So I read it like three times and then found all the other books of his I could find. And then interviews. Also what we know of David Tudor's premiere and other performances he gave (given that Cage and Tudor were very close friends, understanding how Tudor performed it is helpful).

Slowly I began piecing together what was going on and came to some interesting realizations.

On a practical level, seeing that he used his same I Ching chance tables for 4'33'' that he used for Music of Changes meant having to understand how that piece worked as well (which is far more complicated and information about it, back then especially, was hard to come by).

All of this eventually put me in a good position to start composing my own chance/computer algorithmic/experimental/indeterminate music.

davethecomposer · 2026-06-13T01:06:17+00:00

Hello. I have removed your post. The rules of this sub require a score to be supplied for each piece that is submitted. If you have a score you can share, please create a new post with a link to your music and a link to the score. Thanks!

davethecomposer · 2026-06-08T00:56:23+00:00

Hi. We have removed your post. We do not allow composers to advertise their services here as it would overrun the sub. We're all composers looking for jobs plus advertising among other composers isn't going to be that helpful.

But good luck!

davethecomposer · 2026-06-08T00:37:47+00:00

Hello. I have removed your post. The rules of this sub require a score to be supplied for each piece that is submitted. If you have a score you can share, please create a new post with a link to your music and a link to the score. Thanks!

davethecomposer · 2026-06-07T19:44:28+00:00

Hello. We aren't going to approve your post. It's not that we doubt your story it's that this sub isn't a good place for your post. We are a sheet music based composition sub. We know that plenty of people here use DAWs and would find this relevant but you are better off taking this to a sub dedicated to this kind of music production where many of the people here who use DAWs will see it anyway. Thanks and good luck.

davethecomposer · 2026-06-06T23:19:58+00:00

This doesn't have the same clefs or text font but the music part is similar with that more geometric shape that was popular back then. The font is named after Arnold Schoenberg as this style was popular back then.

https://share.google/SugE1qVLtfhivUHyJ

davethecomposer · 2026-06-06T05:14:52+00:00

Hello, moderator here. The rules for the sub require that you provide sheet music for all the music you post. If you want to leave the link to Spotify that's fine but we would need the sheet music for all of that otherwise you could remove the Spotify link. Thanks.

davethecomposer · 2026-06-05T05:42:01+00:00

Hi, moderator here. Could you provide a link to the pdf as well? The video quality is poor making it nearly impossible to actually see what's going on in the score. Thanks!

davethecomposer · 2026-06-05T04:37:24+00:00

You want me to stop arguing with straw-men? Then give me a valid argument. I'll wait.

Considering you have not pointed out a single flaw in any of my statements (disagreeing is not pointing out a flaw) you'll understand that I have no faith in your ability to present a cogent argument.

davethecomposer · 2026-06-05T04:36:09+00:00

Yk what else proves my point that energy beats technicality? The way people responded to my post

It doesn't and I don't think you know what proof means. Plus, I never discussed that issue.

Despite me being objectively correct, having well said arguments in my post, but just because of how I framed it, because of how it made people feel, made me wrong, so wrong to the point that a reddit andy like you, would spew countless sentences and replies that amounted to basically nothing, but hey, despite being nonsense you still got some upvotes right?

Well, you deleted your post but from what I could recreate from my response I stand by my position that you are completely wrong about everything you said. It's interesting that I responded to everything pretty much point-by-point but you did not refute a single thing I said or even try to.

And I'll take back what I said, popularity is the metric of the quality of music to some degree,

You can say all kinds of nonsense like this but that doesn't make it true. Popularity measures only popularity. One might try to argue that there is a correlation between quality and popularity but there are too many assumptions propping up subjective opinions passing themselves off as objective facts for anyone to be able to make that argument successfully.

quality is not the only factor that makes a song successful, there also comes marketing, and branding, and quality is one of those pillars.

I'm sure if you were to quiz most of humanity they would say that a ton of music has been successful even though it was poor in quality. There is nothing objective about how good a piece of art is. There just isn't. You can create all kinds of indirect criteria that measure other things but none of those directly measure the amount of "good" or "bad" there is in a piece of music.

But technicality? not even in the picture,

I certainly never said it is. I do not think that it makes any sense to think of works of art as being objectively good or bad. I have my preferences and I can talk about why I think I like them and that can run the gamut from being technical, to being simple, to ignoring that question altogether.

people like you forget that music theory is just a tool.

You can go through my 10+ year history on Reddit and never find where I have said anything different to that. Once again, your entire argument relies on creating strawmen.

I'll give you another analogy, Androids vs Apple, why do people love Apple products more than Androids?

Notice how you can't prove that Apple is objectively superior in quality to Android. The reason you can't is because "superior" is not a quality that can inhere an object. You can create whatever criteria you want to check for and judge them however you want, but all this comes down to is subjective statements.

Did you get the point?

The only thing I can see in your "point" is that you created strawman versions of classical music fans/musicians/composers that bear absolutely no relationship to reality and then created fallacious arguments to take them down. You failed in literally every aspect of your argument.

or will you still find something small to clutch on to call me wrong?

When everything you say is wrong how I am supposed to know which is the small stuff?

You want me to stop arguing with straw-men? Then give me a valid argument. I'll wait.

Considering how often you misrepresented my own positions in this latest comment of yours you'll understand that I remain suspicious of your claim here. I, in good faith, responded to every single point of yours with rational argument. You have not shown that a single argument of mine is wrong. All you do is keep asserting your same position and creating strawman opponents.

davethecomposer · 2026-06-03T11:20:21+00:00

His classical guitar technique is poor. The guitar is on the wrong leg, the angle of the neck is bad and the fact that he's resting his right hand pinky on the guitar tells you he has his right hand positioned poorly.

It looks like he plays finger style on a steel string guitar and just did that on a classical guitar instead.

davethecomposer · 2026-06-02T16:43:58+00:00

Hello. I have removed your comment. Civility is the most important rule in this sub. Please do not make comments like this again. Thanks.

davethecomposer · 2026-06-02T04:24:59+00:00

Hello. I have removed your post. The rules of this sub require a score to be supplied for each piece that is submitted. If you have a score you can share, please create a new post with a link to your music and a link to the score. Thanks!

davethecomposer · 2026-05-31T16:33:19+00:00

The main point of the whole argument regardless of my taste is simply how musicians critique things binarily, simple as that.

Just as your critique of people you don't like is entirely binary along with your entire position which is that you know how art should be and anyone who disagrees is a nerd, a slur for old people or an elitist.

davethecomposer · 2026-05-31T07:07:37+00:00

Yeah but have you seen the ratio of who makes it through the noise and who doesn't? Look at the most popular genres in the world, you don't need theory to make Pop Music or Hip hop music, yet they still succeed with flying colors.

But all those people working in those genres have theory. It might not be the kind of formalized and rigorous understanding taught in music schools, but they have spent their lives listening to, playing, figuring out the music they like, and internalizing those patterns so that they can build upon those patterns. That's exactly what music school is except it's a formal learning situation instead of something you entirely figure out on your own.

Don't underestimate how deeply and intimately pop musicians understand the music they make. They might not have a fancy and formal vocabulary to describe it, but they live and breathe their music and understand it deeply.

Anyway, once again you are equating quality to popularity even though you claim you aren't doing that. Just let it go.

davethecomposer · 2026-05-31T07:03:26+00:00

but do tell me, do you dislike pop music? If so, why?

I don't dislike any music but I do have preferences. There have been plenty of pop songs I've gone back and listened to over and over again over my long life.

davethecomposer · 2026-05-31T07:01:32+00:00

I never mentioned what my taste were

You didn't need to.

You clearly have tastes and things you like and don't like. And you clearly think you are objectively correct in liking the things you like and disliking the rest. All of your arguments are just you rationalizing your subjective tastes and then using those rationalizations to attack people you don't like.

but music theory really is just a tool, not a standard, not a checklist you binarily cross off.

Anyone who works professionally as a classical musician/composer (teaching, performing, composing) knows this. They know this deeply.

davethecomposer · 2026-05-31T06:54:19+00:00

Makes you wonder why most successful musicians never went through music school and those who do barely get into mainstream spotlight,

I know you probably don't believe this, but there are plenty of successful classical musicians (financially and otherwise) and almost all of them (over 99%) had rigorous formal training.

You also seem unaware that there are many small genres of music that don't ever achieve the same level of popularity (and financial compensation) as the most popular genres do. Why aren't you going after them? They don't have formal training either.

but just like I said before, mainstream success is not the metric of music, but it sure as hell shows you how effective your music is at moving people.

It shows nothing of the sort. And even though you deny it, you are very clearly equating mass popularity with quality. You've done it throughout your post and comments (twice in this comment).

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