Participants 2022
ArtEsploro
AI Song Contest 2022 / participantsTEAM / ArtEsploro
SONG / It is Spring
TEAM MEMBERS / HR Schmidtke (human)
Composition Complex (CC, the core system)
Vicki Synger (a text-to speech synthesizer with CC-interface)
About the TEAM
Developed by composer and lyricist HR Schmidtke, CC started its career as a keyboarder, guitarist, and drummer in 2020, it was joined by Synger in 2022 for the recording of the bands first single for the 2022 AI Song Contest
About the SONG
The song is meant as a cheerful reminder of the power of Spring. The technology is neither Knowledge Representation nor Machine Learning but within the wider Human Intelligence Augmentation paradigm. In this wider AI paradigm, the AI does not act creatively or independently, but extends the human capability. Like the ship's AI in the StarTrek Next Generation series in contrast to its Mr. Data: it helps them to go where no human ever went before, but does not venture anywhere on its own. I hope my apps help composers, musicians, and anybody else to be able to musically go where they have never been before.
I wrote CC and the Synger add-on. Thanks go to the developers of Say and GarageBand (both Apple), the CMU pronounciation dictionory, mido library, Python, Javascript, PS, and CSS.
About the HUMAN-AI PROCESS
This track celebrates how recent audio machine learning can analyze, synthesize and empower music from Southeast Asia with respect to a culture’s native tuning and motifs. Historically, music AI has been limited to Western genres like classical, rock and pop music. These state-of-the-art models for Bach, Bieber and the Beatles are often difficult to apply to music from my home region. Melodies from many parts of Southeast Asia, the Middle East and Africa do not follow the same western scales and tunings assumed by most music AI systems.
Instead of representing music as notes (symbolic AI), we can model music as frequencies (audio AI). Advancements in AI-based pitch detection, make it possible to analyze melodies and inflections measured in Hertz (Hz) from instruments like the Thai Phi with unprecedented accuracy. This pitch data can then be resynthesized into new sounds through technologies I co-developed including Differentiable Digital Signal Processing (DDSP), Tone Transfer and the new VST plugin MAWF. These AI tools empower me to make music inspired by my home traditions, in new ways that no longer compromise the tunings and motifs at the heart of Southeast Asian musical cultures. A variety of additional AI tools including Magenta Studio and drum synthesis via diffusion models power this transcultural fusion of AI Bass music and Phi repertoire from Thailand.
Lyrics
Do you hear the raindrops falling,
on the melting snowman's head?
Do you hear the first bird singing,
little voice still somewhat sad?
It is spring,
It is spring,
everything is possible.
Romeo and Juliet,
are going to get married.
Othello makes a therapy
for his jealousy.
Do you see the cherry blossoms,
on the barren branches' twigs?
Do you see the first green sprouting,
into canopies of sprigs?
It is spring,
It is spring,
everything is possible.
Romeo and Juliet,
are going to get married.
Othello makes a therapy
for his jealousy.
bridge
It is spring,
It is spring,
everything is possible.
It is spring,
It is spring,
everything is possible.