OEM Music


  
Imagine that music was generically manufactured and you could simply rebrand it and sell it as an original product with clever marketing. That's what music AI might be and already is to some degree.

Recently, a computer scientist created an algorithm that can write pop songs that uses Twitter posts as its data set. The raw output is pathetic, but that doesn't mean they can't be improved by simply sculpting them. It's like wanting to make a sculpture, ordering a slab of marble, then just saying it's finished. It could be a readymade, but everything can't be a readymade.

What I think is more interesting is to manually combine rhythmic and melodic elements rather than using cybernetics or Markov chains. For example, taking a Bach piece and mapping the notes over a rhythm from a pop song. But even if it was done with an algorithm, you can't just use it as-is. If you wanted one extracted frame from a video to use a photograph for framing, you can't use the one it gave you: you'd have to review them and select one. It's the same with music.

Sometimes I use Boomy to see what it can generate. Most of it is unusable, but sometimes there are interesting "snapshots" or "stills" that can be used at the "slab".

The Slab 

The Result:

Hers Is a Lush Situation (a nod to both the Beatles and Richard Hamilton)



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