Composer David Cope is the inventor of a computer program that writes original works of classical music. It took Cope 30 years todevelop the software. Now most people can’t tell the difference between musicby the famous German composer J. S. Bach (1685-1750) and the Bach-likecompositions from Cope’s computer.

　　It all started in 1980 in the United States, whenCope was trying to write an opera. He was having trouble thinking of newmelodies, so he wrote a computer program to create the melodies. At first thismusic was not easy to listen to. What did Cope do? He began to rethink howhuman beings compose music. He realized that composers，brains work like big databases.First, they take in all the music that they have ever heard. Then they take outthe music that they dislike. Finally, they make new music from what is left.According to Cope, only the great composers are able to create the databaseaccurately, remember it, and form new musical patterns from it.

　　Cope built a huge database of existing music. He beganwith hundreds of works by Bach. The software analyzed the data：it broke it down into smallerpieces and looked for patterns. It then combined the pieces into new patterns.Before long, the program could compose short Bach-like works. They weren’t good,but it was a start.

　　Cope knew he had more work to do-he had a wholeopera to write. He continued to improve the software. Soon it could analyzemore complex music. He also added many other composers, including his own work,to the database.

　　A few years later，Cope’s computer program, called “Emmy”，was ready to help him with his opera. The process required a lot ofcollaboration between the composer and Emmy. Cope listened to the computer’smusical ideas and used the ones that he liked. With Emmy, the opera took onlytwo weeks to finish. It was called Cradle Falling, and it was a great success!Cope received some of the best reviews of his career, but no one knew exactlyhow he had composed the work.

　　Since that first opera, Emmy has written thousandsof compositions. Cope still gives Emmy feedback on what he likes and doesn’tlike of her music, but she is doing most of the hard work of composing thesedays!

　　词汇：

　　original/əˈrɪdʒənəl / adj.有独创性的

　　collaboration/ kəˌlæbəˈreɪʃən / n.合作

　　review/rɪ'vju:/ n.评论

　　feedback/'fi:dbæk / n.反馈

　　注释

　　J.S. Bach约翰•塞巴斯蒂安•巴赫(德语：Johann Sebastian Bach，1685年3月31日一1750年7月28日)，巴洛克时期的德国作曲家，杰出的管风琴、小提琴、大键琴演奏家，同作曲家亨德尔和泰勒曼齐名。巴赫被普遍认为是音乐史上最重要的作曲家之一，并被尊称为“西方‘现代音乐’之父”，也是西方文化史上最重要的人物之一。

　　练习：

　　1.The music composed by David cope is about ______.

　　A　Classical music

　　B　pop music

　　C　drama

　　D　country music

　　2.By developing a computer software，David cope aimed ______.

　　A　to be like Bach

　　B　to study Bach

　　C　to write an opera

　　D　to create a musical database

　　3.What did cope realize about a great composer’s brain?

　　A　It forms new musical patterns allby itself

　　B　It writes a computer program

　　C　It can recognize any music patterns

　　D　It creates an accurate database

　　4.Who is Emmy?

　　A　a database

　　B　a computer software

　　C　a composer who helped David

　　D　an opera

　　5.We can infer from the passage that ______.

　　A　David Cope is a computerprogrammer.

　　B　David Cope loves music.

　　C　Bach’s music helped him a lot.

　　D　Emmy did much more work than a composer.

　　答案与题解：

　　1.A　第一段的第一句：David Cope发明了一个可以编写出古典音乐的电脑软件。

　　2.C　从第二段的第一句可以看出，David编写电脑软件的目的是写歌剧。A、B和D都属于创作歌剧的一部分。

　　3.D　第二段的后半部分讲的是伟大的歌剧作者与一般的歌剧作者的不同之处是通过对数据进行准确的构建、记忆而后创作出新的音乐形式。

　　4.B　从第五段第一句可知Emmy是一计算机软件。

　　5.D　从本文第一句可知David是一个作曲家，不是计算机程序员，所以排除A;B、C内容没有提及;从本文的第五段和第六段可知，Emmy大大提高了David的创作速度，最后一句，大部分困难的工作都由Emmy来做，所以作曲家只干一小部分工作。