It was such an interesting time for me to read Chapter 4 as a student who had already taken [Music356: Music and AI] and [Music128: Stanford Laptop Orchestra]. A bunch of flashbacks of my last academic year grinding for Music356 and 128 passed through my mind. It was because Chapter 4 contained so many philosophical backbones of Music356 and 128; The ethos of Music356 and 128 can be derived from the principles in Chapter 4.

Principle 4.5: Design things with a computer that would not be possible without!

Principle 4.5 left the greatest impact and resonance on me out of all the things I learned and felt at CCRMA during my first year. Not only was this an ethos of SLOrk that kept running through my head but the ethos of Music356 was eventually that Principle 4.5 could also be applied to AI; We shall figure out music composition or music performance that would not be possible without AI, and that will be when we can really find "interesting" AI music.

Another Principle that really brought me lots of memory was Principle 4.10.

Principle 4.10: Programmability is both blessing and curse.

I still remember the first rehearsal for the SLOrk's Bing Hall concert was like… I would just say, "Not in good shape," and save it here, haha. We had lots of students who really have a strong and great CS background. Their coding skills are amazing; They could code something that I might need several days to finish within only a few hours. Their strong coding skills ultimately contributed greatly to the final performance, but on the first day of rehearsal, despite our strong aggregate coding skills, we were left with sounds that were not good. Although each of the tool codes we brought on that day was fancy, when it came to the outcome sound, it was not artistically appealing at all in the end.

I felt like we were sinking in the mud, and the more we tried to wave our arms, the more we seemed to sink. We were sinking, but it was because of what we were doing ourselves. That mud was really the curse of programmability. Demonstrating our coding skills took precedence over our artistic narrative and intention. So what we had to do over the following weeks was to pull back from the coding that had gone too far and establish an artistic narrative and intention. Although we eventually had a wonderful bing hall concert, this traumatic experience remains deep in my mind, and to this day, I keenly feel the meaning that programmabilty can be a curse and always be wary about it.