2014年職稱英語(綜合類)教材閱讀理解文章及譯文29

　　I’ll Be Bach

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

　　It all started in 1980 in the United States, when Cope was trying to write an opera. He was having trouble thinking of new melodies, so he wrote a computer program to create the melodies. At first this music was not easy to listen to. What did Cope do? He began to rethink how human 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 out the 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 database accurately, remember it, and form new musical patterns from it.

　　Cope built a huge database of existing music. He began with hundreds of works by Bach. The software analyzed the data：it broke it down into smaller pieces 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 whole opera to write. He continued to improve the software. Soon it could analyze more 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 of collaboration between the composer and Emmy. Cope listened to the computer’s musical ideas and used the ones that he liked. With Emmy, the opera took only two 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 exactly how he had composed the work.

　　Since that first opera, Emmy has written thousands of compositions. Cope still gives Emmy feedback on what he likes and doesn’t like of her music, but she is doing most of the hard work of composing these days!

　　詞匯：

　　original有獨創(chuàng)性的

　　collaboration 合作

　　review評論

　　feedback 反饋

　　注釋

　　J. S. Bach約翰?塞巴斯蒂安?巴赫(德語：Johann Sebastian Bach，1685年3月31日一1750年7月28日)，巴洛克時期的德國作曲家，杰出的管風(fēng)琴、小提琴、大鍵琴演奏家，同作曲家亨德爾和泰勒曼齊名。巴赫被普遍認(rèn)為是音樂史上最重要的作曲家之一，并被尊稱為“西方‘現(xiàn)代音樂’之父”，也是西方文化史上最重要的人物之一。

　　練習(xí)：

　　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 works like a big database.

　　B　It writes a computer program.

　　C　It can recognize any music patterns.

　　D　It can create melodies.

　　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 computer programmer.

　　B　David Cope loves music.

　　C　Bach’s music helped him a lot.

　　D　Emmy did much more work than a composer.

　　答案與題解：

　　1.A　第一段的第一句：作曲家大衛(wèi)科普編寫了一個計算機軟件，它能創(chuàng)作出古典音樂作品。

　　2.C　從第二段的第一句可以看出，大衛(wèi)編寫電腦軟件的目的是寫歌劇。A、B和D都屬于創(chuàng)作歌劇的一部分。

　　3.D　第二段的后半部分講的是偉大的歌劇作者與一般的歌劇作者的不同之處是通過對數(shù)據(jù)進(jìn)行準(zhǔn)確的構(gòu)建、記憶而后創(chuàng)作出新的音樂形式。

　　4.B　從第五段第一句可知艾米是計算機軟件。

　　5.D　從本文第一句可知大衛(wèi)是一個作曲家，不是計算機程序員，所以排除A，B和C項內(nèi)容沒有提及;從本文的第五段和第六段可知，艾米大大提高了大衛(wèi)的創(chuàng)作速度，最后一句，大部分重活都由艾米來做，所以作曲家只干一小部分工作。

　　譯文：我也能成為巴赫

　　作曲家大衛(wèi)?科普發(fā)明了一個電腦軟件，它能寫出古典音樂的原創(chuàng)作品?？破栈?0年才完成這個軟件，現(xiàn)在科普的電腦寫出的作品與德國注明作曲家J.S.巴赫寫的作品很相似，很少有人能分辨出其中的不同。

　　這一切始于1980年的美國，那時科普正在寫一部戲劇，但是他無法創(chuàng)作出新的旋律，于是他編寫了一個電腦軟件來幫他編曲。最開始的時候，軟件寫出的樂曲并不動聽?？破帐窃趺醋龅哪?他開始重新考慮人們作曲的方式。他認(rèn)識到作曲家的大腦就像一個大數(shù)據(jù)庫，他們先是吸收他們聽過的所有音樂，然后去除他們不喜歡的，最后再根據(jù)留下的音樂來創(chuàng)作出新的旋律。科普認(rèn)為，只有偉大的作曲家才能建立好數(shù)據(jù)庫，并能熟記于心，從而創(chuàng)造出新的音樂。

　　科普根據(jù)現(xiàn)有的音樂建立了龐大的數(shù)據(jù)庫，最開始的時候，數(shù)據(jù)庫包含了幾百部巴赫的作品?？破盏能浖⑦@些數(shù)據(jù)進(jìn)行分析：首先它將音樂拆解成小的片段，從中找出固定模式，然后將片段組合成新的模式。不久，這個軟件就能夠?qū)懗龊桶秃诊L(fēng)格很像的小曲子。它們并不完美，但這只是個開始。

　　科普知道，他要做的還有很多――他得寫出一整部歌劇。他進(jìn)一步完善他的軟件，不久他就能夠?qū)懗龈鼜?fù)雜的音樂了。他還在數(shù)據(jù)庫中加入了一些其他作曲家的作品，其中也包括他自己的作品。

　　幾年后，科普的軟件“艾米”已經(jīng)能夠幫助他創(chuàng)作歌劇了。創(chuàng)作過程需要作曲家和艾米共同配合?？破振雎牥讓懗龅囊魳菲?，從中選取他認(rèn)為好的。有了艾米的幫助，科普只用了兩個星期就完成這部歌劇，叫做《搖籃墜落》。演出獲得巨大成功，科普也得到了他有生以來最高的評價，但是沒有人知道他究竟是怎樣創(chuàng)作出這部歌劇的。

　　從那以后，艾米已經(jīng)寫了上千部作品?？破宅F(xiàn)在依然會給艾米反饋，告訴她自己哪些音樂是他喜歡的，哪些是不喜歡的，但是現(xiàn)在大部分艱巨的工作是由艾米來完成的。