Bach Lives!...At David Cope's House

In 1981, musician David Cope was struggling with a "composer's block." As an aid to analyzing his own compositional style, Cope created an artificial intelligence program which he called "Experiments in Musical Intelligence" or EMI, for short. At the heart of the program is a sophisticated code for recognizing and reproducing the patterns in music. In fact, EMI is such a powerful piece of software that it has touched off controversy throughout the musical spectrum. Whereas most music composition programs have historically turned out, in the words of computer scientist Kevin Karplus, "music that only the composer could love," Cope's EMI has successfully created compositions in the style of Bach, Mozart, Scott Joplin, and others, which have fooled musicologists. According to music critic Scott MacClelland: "It's kind of like David Cope created a Frankenstein monster." Bach Lives!, directed by Bob Giges, University of California, interviews David Cope, examines the way EMI works, includes performances of works composed by EMI, and most importantly raises questions about the meaning of art. A thought-provoking documentary. Recommended. (Available from: Giges Productions, 1740 Escalona Dr., Santa Cruz, CA 95060.)