Participants 2022
Serge FOURCADE
AI Song Contest 2022 / participantsTEAM / Serge FOURCADE
SONG / Latine cantandum
TEAM MEMBERS / Serge FOURCADE
About the TEAM
Serge Fourcade was born on Halloween’s eve 1974 in France, near Paris. After a PhD about fairy tales in 2005, he branched out into a carrier of civil servant devoted to environmental conservation. In his spare time, he is interested in literature, folklore, music — especially computer generated —, Eurovision song Contest, artificial intelligence and humour. In his secluded spot he works on his own with the only company of a half-dead personal computer and obsolete software. Having learnt Latin at school for six years an a flying visit to the Appian Way inspired him and helped much for writing the lyrics of the song.
About the SONG
The song is an observation of the importance of the Latin language, civilisation and work for our modern culture whereas the Vatican City is not represented at he contest. After having told of the strange ability of understanding unknown languages, the song recall of facts of the Latin heritage, luck and bad luck, superstitions like the prohibition of wearing green on the scene (what you cannot avoid doing if you are green-eyed), the necessity of protect nature if you want to keep living and the hope your homeland will not forever remain in the second position in the ESC ranking.
About the HUMAN-AI PROCESS
The song was created as a challenge to make a song with long parts in Latin, disrupting the hegemony of English, and recalling the folklore of Eurovision Song Contest. Some lyrics are written in Japanese since non-European countries may be invited to the show. I got them using automated translation (Google translate and others). The music has been created by laying end to end the hits of the contest, next cutting the whole in pieces of two minutes’ length, and using these pieces both melting them together in a unique two minute mayhem and filtering this mess through an AI trained with each one of the two minute pieces separately. The AI itself was not my creation but a yet old software, Tonica Plus, in a 2004 version. The subject of the lyrics was partly inspired by several songs from Eurovision randomly drawn on http://diggiloo.net/ and by distinctive elements of the contest: Charpentier’s Te Deum, phobia of the colour green and the bad luck of performing as the second artist in the evening. The pseudo-human singing voice is entirely made using computer synthetic voice technology: it has been forged by means of the “Virtual singer” provided by the application PDFtoMusic.
Lyrics
(As sung:)
Latine cantandum
L’orchestre joue un Te Deum de Marc-Antoine
Mais, parmi les rockeurs et la coloratur,
On n’entend pas chanter la cité vaticane.
Quid novi sub sole ? Nihil ! Absconditur :
La langue de Sénèque est proscrite à son tour.
Shiranai gengo
No oto
Ga wakaru
Ki ga suru.
Vos figo duobus oculis viridibus
Vere faustis, fictis exitialibus.
Latine cantandum quae enim lingua
Res publicas, regna atque imperia,
Orientem, occidentem jungit est illa.
Les portes et les ponts servent à nos échanges.
Il faut rendre à César ce que nous lui devons :
Les blocs mis bout à bout qui traversent les fanges,
Les arcs et les théâtres que nous élevons
Sont l’œuvre des Romains que nous parachevons.
Shiranai gengo
No oto
Ga wakaru
Ki ga suru.
Quoniam et fori sensum controversiae
Ostenderunt et viride spei signum,
Quae nos servet, in cura naturae
Et secundum locum patriae meae
Consuetum neque constat lex serierum.
(Translation to English:
We must sing in Latin
The orchestra is playing a Te Deum by Marc-Antoine,
But, among the rockers and the coloratura,
You can’t hear the Vatican City singing.
What’s new under the sun ? Nothing! It’s hiding:
Seneca’s language in turn is banned.
I somehow feel I can understand the sounds of unknown idioms.
I’m staring at you with two green eyes,
Really auspicious yet said unlucky.
We must sing in Latin, which language
Is indeed the one that unites republics, kingdoms, empires,
The East and the West.
Doors and bridges are used for our trade.
Let's repay to Caesar what belongs to him;
The blocks laid end to end that cross mires,
The arches and theatres we will put up
Are the Romans’ work we’re finishing off.
I somehow feel I can understand the sounds of unknown idioms.
Because forums have taught us the spirit of controversy
And because green is the colour of the hope
(That may save us) in Nature conservation,
And because my fatherland is used to the second rank
And because there’s no law of series.)