The blank page syndrome in authors is well known, whether they are involved in literature, cinema or music. Now, for those who write songs and do not find the right inspiration, a new one comes to the rescue technology developed by a team from the University of Waterloo (Canada): it’s called LyricJam and is a system that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to generate lyrics that accompany the music in real time live instrumental. A tool that seems to work and helps composers to write lyrics that are perfectly consistent with the style and rhythm of the music they play.
LyricJam, the technology that helps you write songs
The system for generating lyrics in accordance with music was created by members of the Canadian University’s Natural Language Processing Lab. The software, trained over time, is able to learn the musical expressions of artists and generate texts taking into account their style.
Various aspects of music are considered in the elaboration, such as progressions of chords, tempo and instrumentation: the aim is to synthesize texts that reflect the emotions expressed by live music.
How does it work? While a musician or band plays instrumental music, the system continuously records raw audio files, which the neural network processes to generate lines of text. Textual production takes place after learning what lyrical themes, words and styles are associated with different aspects of the music contained in the files.
For example, the lyrics generated for metal music they are very different from those for ambient music.
Then the artists can use these lines to compose more personal texts.
A help for musicians
It’s time to to retire authors and lyricists? No, explains Olga Vechtomova, lead author of the research: “The purpose of the system is not to write a song for the artist. We want to help artists express their creativity. The system generates poetic lines with metaphors and expressions, potentially guiding artists in directions creatives that they have never explored before. “
It seems to work: the research team invited musicians to play live instruments using the system and “An unexpected discovery was that the participants felt encouraged to improvise from the lines generated by LyricJam. Some musicians also used the lines to check if their improvisation had had the desired emotional effect. “
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