Slashdot Mirror
Researchers Create an Automatic Backup Band for Singers
Researchers at Microsoft Labs are hoping to allow untrained singers to have their own automatic backup band in the near future. A new piece of software, "MySong", promises to take a sung melody and using a probability computation algorithm, generate an appropriate chord accompaniment. There is also a video of the process on the Microsoft Labs website. "'The idea is to let a creative but musically untrained individual get a taste of song writing and music creation,' Morris told New Scientist. 'There was nothing out there that could take a sung vocal melody as an input and then generate appropriate chords to accompany it. [...] Since people rarely sing at precise frequencies, MySong compares a sung melody to the 12 standard musical notes. It then feeds an approximate sequence of notes to the system's chord probability computation algorithm. This algorithm has been trained, through analysis of 300 rock, pop, country and jazz songs, to recognize fragments of melody and chords that work well together, as well as chords that complement each another.'"
Uh, so don't listen to it... I don't understand why people like you get so angry over pop music, welcome to the free world where you can listen to whatever music you like, and hopefully let others do the same.
The thing is, music has ALWAYS been based off mathematical formulas at its core. The "art" really lies in the musician picking and choosing options that work well together to create something pleasing to the ear. (Well, that plus the skill of being proficient in playing an instrument of choice, and/or talent in singing the vocals well.)
I've played with software in the past that promised to build backing tracks "automatically". There's a pretty neat one called "The Jammer Pro", for example, or the more rudimentary "Band in a Box" software.
The thing is, you still have to make musical decisions as to which portions of what they generate you'd like to keep, which you'd like to delete, and which give you some good ideas, but need "tweaking" to make the best use of them.
The Jammer Pro, for example, would let you drag and drop in a "session rock guitarist" for example, and would write electric guitar solos to go along with the chord changes and tempo you specified as the "core" of your song. Some of these were really good! But you had to audition everything it made, and hit "redo" a lot to discard ones that weren't so good, before it came up with something that was a "keeper".
I really don't envision a computer creating perfect "backing tracks" in real-time to any vocals sung into it. It's more like, it'll sometimes/often make "passable" ones, fun for karaoke or practicing -- but not worthy of recording.
Vivace (now Smartmusic) uses preprogrammed MIDI files to accompany. It does not make it up. I teach harmony, and let me tell you that the vast majority of pop music out there is incredibly limited in its harmonic vocabulary. Out of all typical harmonic devices used to support a melody, your standard radio material probably uses about 5% of them. So, while this does seem to be a pretty simple and effective implementation of the same processes I teach to students, it is not that hard to do. As long as you set your sights on typical pop music, you can churn out the songs very quickly with sophomore-level training. As a professional musician myself, I for one welcome our new harmonic....oh, never mind.
That's about what I was thinking. Actually the first thoughts out of my head were:
"Oh, for fuck's sake! Is creating and playing music really that fucking hard?" I mean, people have been doing this shit for CENTURIES, folks! Millennia even!
I can just see it now:
Seacrest: Welcome to Microsoft Idol! And welcome to tonight's first contestant, Sanjaya! In our last round, Sanjaya blue-screened our backup computer band....can he make a comeback tonight? Let's find out!
My blog
As a musician, I actually think it's kind of neat. I could actually have some fun with something like this.
Machines cannot replace musicians. Music is emotional. It is improv. It is creative. Machines do as they are told, and even if they have some complex AI going on, they can still only function according to the parameters they are given. And since a human has to program the machine, the machine cannot be a better musician than the person or persons who programmed it. There is a difference between playing chords to a song and making it your own. Think of all the jazz standards, for example. How many different versions are there of, for example, Misty? Countless. Or how many songs use Gershiwn's "Rhythm" changes? Check this out: http://songtrellis.com/changesPage. Lots of chord changes there. But each version of each song is unique. Music is art. It's not about who is technically "better" or who plays the changes perfectly; oftentimes it the deviations from perfection that can make a song so compelling. Until someone makes a machine with the ability to improvise in response to the lead singer or soloist, convey emotion, *enjoy* music, and discover new things through taking risks and making mistakes, musicians won't become obsolete whatever that means, as if people won't still enjoy making music even if machines *could* do it better.
It's a neat toy, and nothing more. And if crappy pop music uses machines for a backing band, who would even notice? With that form of music, the background music is like the tires on your bike, you don't care about them until they blow. The teenies who buy that crap don't care about music, they are buying into a fantasy that they can be cool and popular and all the crap the pop icon represents. I'd bet that the musicians who back the likes of the Backstreet Boys and Britney and so forth hate it anyhow, they are probably being paid well to be musically bored to death. I feel sorry for those guys. It'd be such a drag to back up a bunch of no talent rich kids. Now, that's a perfect job for machines. Automate the mundane, do the interesting stuff.
blah blah blah
Some Blond Whore is one of the best new bands out there. You should give them a listen.
You are welcome on my lawn.