No, it didn't. It failed to produce competent pastiche of any of the small or large scale structures in the original track. Some of the medium scale structures are almost passable, but not with any reliability or consistency.
So it does the usual expert system/AI thing of cycling between "Almost music" and "And... lost the plot" over and over.
It didn't learn from Pat Metheny. It "learned" (curve-fit rather) from a MIDI file or two, apparently.
If it learned from a real musician, one of the first things it would have been taught is how to listen to other musician's music. And then, how to listen to itself. And then, how to play a much simpler piece, than then play it right, so it sounds like music... not like someone typing (which is what the SoundCloud samples sound like, to my ears).
But of course machines don't "listen" in any meaningful sense. And they certainly can't tell what it is they like about Pat Metheny's music; or why they "like" his music, but not the music of Billy Joel or Anthony Braxton.
So maybe that's where these researchers should start -- by creating systems that (at least attempt to) understand and evaluate music. And to tell good from bad.
Then, maybe, they can toy around with systems that generate music.
