Some Music Theorists Are Furious About the Bach Google Doodle

Thursday's Google Doodle celebrated the 334th birthday of famed composer Johann Sebastian Bach, with a twist: It was the first Doodle to incorporate machine learning. Users could create a melody, then the Doodle would automatically generate custom harmonies to produce a full composition in Bach's style. It was delightful for many Google users, but it also stepped into a controversy that has been brewing in musical circles for years. Google says in its "Behind the Doodle" video that it chose Bach's music as the subject of the first A.I. Doodle because he had a characteristic style and composed with a set of musical rules in mind. This formulaic quality made his work an ideal subject for a machine-learning algorithm to train on.