[Music] Melodyne - The end of Classical Guitar

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pe0nxkE28_4&feature=related

I personally hate this. Ruining classical guitar, and basically eschewing musician skill for technological permutation.

I wouldn't say it is ruining it, but the idea is great for editing music.

 I, personally, think this is wonderful! Why must music be limited only to those who have taken the time to learn one or several instruments? For many people, I would imagine that time constraints in their lives makes that impossible. But does it necessarily follow that those people still cannot create unique or interesting pieces of music?
 There are some people who say that Daft Punk technically aren't musicians, since (to my knowledge) they don't use any real instruments; this, despite the fact that they can and have played- however briefly- in live bands. To me, saying that they aren't musicians simply because they don't play real instruments is a flawed argument. In the same way, just because someone sits down and makes a classical guitar piece without actually playing a guitar, it doesn't necessarily follow that they aren't good musicians. Anyone can slap a few notes down on a midi synthesizer, but if the song ends up sounding beautiful, is it such a hard thing to acknowledge their skill?
 To me, this is simply the next musical evolutionary step. If I had to make a comparison, I would equate it to saying that Beethoven wasn't a real musician because, although he wrote many scores that included brass and woodwinds, he never actually played those instruments, himself. He was, essentially, doing the same thing. I say: let everyone explore music! If any program out there can inspire more musicians by making it more approachable, it's a good thing in my book.

Actually Beethoven could play brass and woodwinds, because most composers take the time to at least learn the basics of playing each instrument. Just because he was known prominently as a pianist doesn't mean he only knew how to play the piano. Today most any composition degree you get will require you to take tech classes on all the major orchestral instruments. That goes for music education as well.

The thing is, much like Fruity Loops, this opens up music writing and production up to pretty much anyone who can click with a mouse. Not necessarily a bad thing, because, as you said, even without extensive musical knowledge one can write something musically worthwhile. However this also means many people who figure out how to change the pitch of a loop and copy/paste one after another will be calling themselves composers and musicians.

Still, it doesn't really matter though. This is the kind of thing that's more for studio use rather than writing. Is this the "end of classical guitar" or the "next musical evolutionary step"? Hardly. All things like this do is make it easier for more people to get into "writing" and producing music and sharing it online. It won't change anything about the way music is written for performance, especially in an orchestral setting.

Actually Beethoven could play brass and woodwinds

 So far as I know, the only other instruments Beethoven ever learned to play were the viola, organ and piano...

I'm not saying he could pick up an oboe and start sight reading anything, but it's more than likely he could play scales etc. whereas he was a virtuoso pianist and an accomplished viola player and could easily perform difficult music. The basics is what I'm talking about. He knew (very likely) how to play the instruments, not meaning he was at all prolific. I should amend what I said above though, because it can't be known for sure that he could play all the instruments, but it's widely assumed that composers from his time were at least familiar with playing them.

While I don't see how this program would "ruin classical guitar", I can see how many people will begin thinking they're musicians just because they have enough money to buy a setup that will fix all their errors for them.

The truth remains, though, that this program won't make people have good ideas for songs.

This is awesome! This will save so much time for some musicians. Think about how much people can save in a studio by using this. If you get done laying down a track for a six minute long shreddin' solo on your latest power metal record, and you accidentally hit an F instead of an F# on one of those little arpeggios, think how much time that saves. You don't have the time to go back and re-do the whole track (studio time is expensiveee), so you just dash in and make a simple fix.

This will not replace real instrumentalists. You still need someone there to play the guitar, or violin or whatever you need. You can compose songs based on a single sample, but a real guitarist is going to just sound and feel so much better. With sequencing, you'll never get the right timbre, tone, or dare I say soul. letting a computer do all your work for you tends to do that.

I dreamt about something like this quite a number of times, I'm glad something cropped up!
This could well be a trigger to a world where composing will be an activity that everyone can partake. Which isn't always a good thing.

But this may be an opportunity to cross the current boundaries of composing music.