In the education of musicians, the development of refined auditory skills is of the utmost importance. The ability to discriminate on the basis of subtle differences in timbre, pitch, dynamics, timing, and other variables is essential to musicians; equally important is the ability to imagine sounds in advance of performing them or composing with them. The ability to listen to and compose music is often attributed to Artificial Intelligence; this is based on a superficial understanding of the complex phenomenon of human audition, which unfolds in phases including detection (hearing), attention (listening), reflection (“hearing again”), and imagination. Through a phenomenological examination of human audition and its roots in consciousness and embodiment, this paper distinguishes between the human experience of performing, creating and listening to music, and what Artificial Intelligence is doing when it emulates those experiences. In understanding the profound differences between human and machine audition, we can better predict how humans and AI can meaningfully interact in music; this has important consequences for the future of music education.
Stephen C. Whittington (Wed,) studied this question.