Computer musical accompaniment is now a thing

Olafur Arnalds, the Icelandic composer known for the title music in the UK TV series Broadchurch, did a Tiny Desk concert on NPR lately that is an amazing example of how technology can be leveraged to create music in an entirely new way.

At the 3:55 mark, he starts to play his synthesizer, but the two pianos behind him accompany him on their own, as if a ghost is playing the keys. In fact, he's using a system called Stratus, which listens to what he's playing, and responds by creating patterns that are musically in tune with the chord or notes Ólafur performed.

"Basically, it's a way to break out of the box musicians often fall back on as performers — the familiar responses that years of playing can reinforce. With that is the hope that the computer will create a response that is unfamiliar and, in some cases through speed of performance and the sheer number of notes played, impossible for a human to have made. So, it breathes new life into the music for the listener and the performer."