is not only the best exposition of the marvels of late Debussy I have ever seen (although half a century ago I listened to Bernstein brilliantly touch on the topic during his Norton lectures at Harvard),
it is I think extremely valuable in thinking through the challenges of comprehending and dismissing much of current AI, and asking where AI goes.
Music IS a language, and arguably the ground from which grammatically structured language grew. AI as currently flooding the world, springs idiotically from writings, but ignores what music knows and communicates to humans.
Or am i being more than normally crazy on this beautiful Mexican Spring day on the banks of the Rio Laja.
In arts school, my music teacher suggested that ideas first came to visual artists and last to musical composers. Monet was born in 1840, and Debussy in 1862.
It would take until 1910 for van Gogh to be better known. Clair De Lune was written in 1890, the year van Gogh died. His paintings were post-impressionist.
Debussy was detached from the Impressionists. He made some small semblance of sense to impressionism. He was also more onto himself in this light.
Pretty clever parallel actually — people back then couldn’t imagine what recorded music would do to the entertainment industry, same way most investors now are still underestimating how deep AI cuts into existing business models. The macro implications are nowhere near fully priced in, and threads like this are exactly why I keep coming back to this community instead of just reading the headlines.
