Comments on Moorer's music and computer composition

Abstract

J.A. Moorer's “Music and Computer Composition” [1] was a distressing communication. While I realize that musical expertise is probably beyond the realm of the editorial staff, I must object to both the naiveté and faulty reasoning on the musical side of this article. In a nutshell, Moorer presents us with many paragraphs of philosophical meanderings to back up a few results which are, by his own admission, inadequate. From this he concludes, “It is also hoped that this experiment may help dispel doubts that musical composition is ‘sacred’ and unreachable by mechanical methods.” From any serious musical point of view, such a conclusion is almost vacuous.