Artificial Intelligence Virtual Artist is a program that produces original music following the simple instructions of the user
Artificial intelligence is a reality that, day by day, it cuts out an ever-greater slice of everyday life. The AI controls the machines with assisted drive, the houses with domotics, the vocal assistants with Siri, Alexa and Google Assistant. Among other things, one of the difficulties with AI is creating something new, such as composing music. An amazing artificial intelligence that creates music is now a reality with AIVA.
What is AIVA?
AIVA is a software that has “studied” 30 thousand historical music piece, from Bach to Metallica. The AI deeply analyzes the scores in search of analogies to understand which notes follow other notes in specific patterns. In this way, AIVA can predict a melodic or harmonic succession (notes or chords) for a specific musical style. An example of the compositions can be heard on YouTube, SoundCloud, Spotify and AppleMusic. AIVA is the first virtual composer to be recognized by a copyright collecting agency, the French SECAM.
Differences between AIVA and a human musician
The study of music leads a musician to write songs based on his experience and his musical sensitivity, refined after years of attempts. In case the original intention does not produce a pleasant result to the ear, the artist can go back and correct the error. AIVA succeeds in reproducing this cognitive process starting from decades of knowledge and musical studies and reducing it to a few hours of computational process.
The interaction between man and AI
Music is made by rules and stylistic standards, but also by personal attitude and mood. And the man acts precisely here: the user indicates to AIVA the desired features, such as the emotional state, the density of the notes, the style and the historical period. The final result is an original composition, which can be performed by a group or an orchestra.
“The IA can create beautiful music pieces and the best aspect is that man can bring it to life. Personalized music will be the next big single challenge on how we create and use music”, say Pierre Barreau, an engineer who presented AIVA at a TED event in Vancouver in 2018. “Today we have interactive content, like games with hundreds of hours of game play but only two hours of music on average. We’re working on ensuring AIVA can compose hundreds of hours of custom music. The goal is not just video game music, but bringing composers like Beethoven back to life. Imagine if instead of For Elise, Beethoven is sitting in front of you composing music according to your personality and your story. Imagine also capturing Martin Luther King’s ideals and turning them into music. Therefore, the sentence “I have a dream” is linked not only to a great speech but also to a great piece of music that incorporated Dr. King’s ideals.