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Welcome to Magenta – Google music AI project

magenta.tensorflow.org

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Re: Welcome to Magenta – Google music AI project

#51

Post by eru »

onion2k wrote: post #29
ashleyblackmore wrote: post #25

People want and need other people around, doing human things. Even if the musical output was impressive, I can't think of people developing a deep relationship with it outside of novelty. Algorithms are cold, and music is usually very much the opposite - I can see an "uncanny valley" effect cropping up with the imitative forms: people hearing something that is supposed to come across as laden with emotion, instead le…

Even if the musical output was impressive, I can't think of people developing a deep relationship with it outside of novelty. There are plenty of times and places where people want high quality "music" but don't want to actually engage with it on any level - the music that tells you you're still connected when you're waiting for a conference call, the low volume background music in some retail environments, the music…

Or in a video game, where you'd want the music to react to events.

Re: Welcome to Magenta – Google music AI project

#52

Post by eru »

davedx wrote: post #24
aclissold wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding Kindertotenlieder, he didn't actually lose any children until after he wrote it. Quoth Wikipedia [0]: “I placed myself in the situation that a child of mine had died. When I really lost my daughter, I could not have written these songs any more.” [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kindertotenlieder

Wow, those poems are wrenching, even in translated form. They really are an open door to somebody's personal grief.

Have a look at the Todesfuge: eg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVwLqEHDCQE or http://www.celan-projekt.de/todesfuge-deutsch.html and http://poemsintranslation.blogspot.com.au/2010/01/paul-celan... (the translation doesn't seem nearly as wrenching as the German to me, though).

Der Tod ist ein Meister aus Deutschland.

Re: Welcome to Magenta – Google music AI project

#53

Post by meggar »

For the generation part, it might be a good idea to separate "music" into its parts (like bass, drums, melody, chord-rhythm, chord-ambient-background, and other stuff like secondary melodies, horn section arrangements or whatever). A unique model for each one of those could learn differently. Each of those parts could be broken down even further too.

Re: Welcome to Magenta – Google music AI project

#54

Post by maroonblazer »

my_username_is_ wrote: post #3

Having recently spent some time browsing the submissions of /r/deepdream and seeing how far computer generated imaging has come, I have no doubts that one day we will be listening to wonderful sounds that are generated by artificial intelligence. However an intrinsic part of the music (to me, anyways) as an art form, is the humanity of it. A computer can generate lyrics that are relatable on the surface, but knowing…

I've not been following the AI-music-making scene in depth so maybe this has already been explored: Instead of (or in addition to) focusing on creating AI that can compose entire works, is anyone attempting to use AI to assist composers/musicians in getting over 'rough spots' in their own music.

For example, I often write pieces of music where I can pinpoint very specific sections where the harmonic, melodic or rhythmic choices (separately or in any combination) sound trite or boring/predictable. I'd love to be able to feed the entire song into a machine, point out those specific trouble spots to it, and have it generate alternatives for just those sections, perhaps on a spectrum from 'not-too-far-from-the-rest-of-what-you've-written' (harmonically/melodically/rhythmically) on one end to 'way-out-there' on the other.

Even if none of the output on its own was usable it would still have value in stimulating my imagination with ideas that otherwise wouldn't have occurred to me and that I could build on or refine.

Re: Welcome to Magenta – Google music AI project

#56

Post by illumin8 »

thomasahle wrote: post #37
my_username_is_ wrote: post #3

Having recently spent some time browsing the submissions of /r/deepdream and seeing how far computer generated imaging has come, I have no doubts that one day we will be listening to wonderful sounds that are generated by artificial intelligence. However an intrinsic part of the music (to me, anyways) as an art form, is the humanity of it. A computer can generate lyrics that are relatable on the surface, but knowing…

> but knowing that there isn't a person behind those words, feeling what I'm feeling, definitely detracts from the experience of the whole. I recently had a discussion about this with a musician. I said that I didn't like when music was produced (and certainly lyrics written by) somebody else than the performer. I said it took away from the experience of 'getting to know' the person I was listening to. She basically…

The way popular music is produced today, the artists performing almost never write their own music. Songs are shopped around by songwriter/producers to music labels, and label executives say "yes, that song properly portrays the slutty image we want to market for Miley Cyrus, we'll buy it." Then Miley performs it and we all cringe...

It's sad, but this is the reality of the music industry today. It also means it's highly unlikely that a modern version of the Beatles would ever exist or become successful in the music industry. I guess Coldplay is probably the closest we will come (they certainly write all of their own music).

Re: Welcome to Magenta – Google music AI project

#57

Post by ssalazar »

The more interesting application of this IMO is not replacing current popular/practicing musicians and artists but enabling non-professionals who have some musical inclination but limited time/skill/etc. Imagine a synthesizer for dance music with knobs for high level parameters like "grimy-ness" or "shine." Rather than auto generate a complete song with no user input, semantic control could be offered using learned models, allowing a rewarding experience with musical creativity without having to spend a lot of time learning the technical intricacies of these semantics.

Re: Welcome to Magenta – Google music AI project

#59

Post by illumin8 »

zamalek wrote: post #35
shams93 wrote: post #13

The problem is the reliance on midi but it shouldnt be hard to build a credible house music generator even with midi byt relying in midi music data for training wont get you something that sounds like a jimi hendrix. But doing automated dance music makes sense.

> But doing automated dance music makes sense. This has been done with LSTM[1][2]. Impressively, the NN is generating waveforms and not MIDI notes - at around 3:50 it even attempts some singing. [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VTI1BBLydE [2]: https://github.com/MattVitelli/GRUV

Very cool! I actually think Jazz improvisation would not be very hard to do:

One of the things you realize if you study jazz improvisation deeply, is that it isn't that random. Someone like Charlie Parker learned over 100 interesting riffs or patterns, then learned to play them in any key (transposing as necessary), and when improvising, transposes each into the chord the band is currently playing, and arranges them in a unique and interesting order.

Indeed, this is why many great Jazz musicians learn to improvise by transcribing solos of Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, etc, and learning their riffs in every possible key. Transposing is one of the best possible ways to learn to improvise, because it teaches you to listen and hear notes, as well as the patterns/riffs that everyone copies from each other.

There is even a great book called "Patterns for Jazz" that captures many of the most powerful riffs used by these musicians.

The really interesting thing about this is while most of the listening public assumes jazz is pure improvisation, much of it is copied riffs just rearranged in unique and interesting ways. I don't mean to detract from it; jazz is still a great musical style, but like all styles results from derivatives of previous works.

edit: grammar

Re: Welcome to Magenta – Google music AI project

#60

Post by soundwave106 »

philhartmanonic wrote: post #8
zer00eyz wrote: post #4

This is interesting, but it feels a lot like a moonshot, and it isn't even groundbreaking. The approach may be novel but folks have been trying this for a while http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/music_box/2010/05/ill_be_... Can code generate a catchy pop tune? Im sure it can. Would I qualify it as music? Probably not. Music can pull from sources that are EXTERNAL to the music: Heres a modern track that does just suc…

I don't know about that. The whole idea of "having a soul" is so nebulous that it's hard to build a view on top of it. Do we have souls? If yes, is it possible to mechanically replicate a soul? If not, why not? What's a soul? If instead you define art as the communication of things that can't be fully expressed by direct sterile language, that's something I can get behind. Going that route, I think that getting AI to…

That statement "music has soul" to me merely characterizes the emotional attachment that people put on music. I'm not sure how that could be 100% programmed or machine-learned at this time.

That being said, musicians have been creating machine-assisted composition (sequencer driven, stochastic, etc.) for a long time. I can imagine great art coming from AI, if the composer is there to help "guide the AI tool" in the direction he or she wants. AI as a means to an end, I don't see greatness from that... AI as an instrument, that could be very interesting...

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