We have been
going through extraordinary times in the last months. A tiny little virus has
locked almost all the people around world in their houses, affected all our
everyday habits, the social and economic life of the whole world, and probably
the politics as well. After almost half a year it seems a little bit under the
control, and many countries are trying to ease the very strict restrictions,
normalising the life again, but the threat is still there and experts are
already talking about the second wave. On the other hand it seems that somehow
we got used to live with this crisis.
During this
global outbreak we all have faced ourselves and the institutions that we have
built as well. For example, it has shown us how fragile the "unions"
are that we have founded, or maybe the “real” foundations that they were built
on. The actions (or "non-action" at all) of "European
Union"; the very modern countries stealing the protective masks from each
other; or confiscating each other's medical supplies. Probably the world will
not be the same as before if the outbreak continues for some more of months.
But the aim of this article is not making assessments about politics, though.
This - propably
the first in the world history as such - global outbreak has affected/is still
affecting all our everyday habits, cultural and social activities and changing
them, too. One of those affected has been/is also music and musical activities.
Because of the precautions and restriction to go out many cultural events, and
also concerts, had to be cancelled which put musicians economically in hard
situations. The cancelling of weddings, concerts and festivals in which music
has a central role, are also opportunities for musicians to continue their
musical and economical life. Though the concern of some people was not only
economical, but to sing their song freely. Helin Bölek and Ibrahim Gökçek,
members of Turkish protest music band Grup Yorum lost their lives in a hunger
strike to protest banning on their music/musical style in those Corona days.
Bölek was in the 288th, and Gökçek was in the 323rd days of strike when they
lost their lives.[1]
However, music
is coming from social and cultural life, affected by what is going on around,
and is a way of expressing the feelings, emotions, ideas of individuals as
musicians or also community. Though the concerts and festival were cancelled,
some lost their lives for the sake of their music, music did not stop as well
as musical activities.
During Corona
days many songs were composed and sung related to either coronavirus itself or
the situation we were/are in. There are some researches such as the Global
Corona Playslist at the University of Arizona and articles and news about
corona and music.[2] The most
interesting one to me was the one about setting the structure of the virus to
music, which made me think about the AI (Artificial Intelligent) and making
music, and also music of the future.[3]
The Project is led by Markus J. Buehler who is not a musician but a material
scientist and engineer at the MIT.[4]
They used a sonification technique in which they assigned each amino acid a
unique note in musical scale and converted the entire protein into a musical
score, which can be called “music of Coronavirus”. The research team choose the
instruments and the main one is Japanese koto. It is music coming from the
movements of the molecular elements of the virus, taking 1 hour 43 minutes 48
seconds, like a senfonical concert. It
is amazing, and I would say it is very calming in contrast to the danger of the
coronavirus itself. (Here to listen: https://soundcloud.com/user-275864738/viral-counterpoint-of-the-coronavirus-spike-protein-2019-ncov).
The question
here is; even though the notes were given by the researchers, is the composer
also a “human being” or AI (Artificial Intelligence)? At the final stage, the product can be considered being
from the “human being”, but what is next? Will making music need a human itself
anymore? Or are we going to listen to more music made by AI?
It seems that
the coronavirus has already changed our everday life, it probably will change
our perception towards music, too.
* This article was first written in April and before finishing, my computer had broken with all my data inside it; and because of the restrictions due to Coronovirus I couldn't get it repaired until the end of May. Then, I wrote again and made some small changes...
[2] For some
of them see. - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1o8Vd4T4dkjged2tX19sdDIEsBbuAnYVpbcLY6ncAnbQ/edit
[3] https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/04/scientists-have-turned-structure-coronavirus-music
[4]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markus_J._Buehler
