Microsoft Songsmith a Youtube Hit Machine

http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2009/01/29/microsofts-songsmith-a-youtube-hit-machine/

by physcab • 17 years ago

49 45 17 years ago

features.csmonitor.com

unalone10• 17 years ago

Roxanne was great, but their other two absolutely weren't among the best. Oasis' Wonderwall became an excellent non-emo techno song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1e_h1OJfS4

The program changes minor chords in the song to major, so suddenly the chorus seems peppy and bouncy. And its version of Crazy Train fits far too well and will have you laughing out loud if you're a fan of the original:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFZvLprEIpw

I like how some people are decrying this online as the death of music, like Songsmith is going to change how music is made. (Oasis writing music with Garage Band to the contrary, most people still write their music by getting some musicians together and figuring out how stuff sounds.) I think it's really neat that it can do this! The program's working very well - I'm installing the beta today and we'll see how well it handles real-people voices - and people expecting it to magically create the memorable hooks and snares from the original are people who still miss that a machine can't generate truly great music, because the best music comes not from formula but from the human mind.

mechanical_fish4• 17 years ago

Holy crap, that is absolutely hilarious. The bluegrass polka version of Crazy Train! I gotta get out the banjo!

And of course people hail this as the death of music. It's a strange tic in our culture: Every time we do anything except play the same old music in the same old way, it's a sign of something dying. If you double the number of music listeners overnight, that's a harbinger of death. If you get fifty million Rock Band players analyzing the drum tracks of Rush tunes that are thirty years old, that's a harbinger of death. If you get people competing to find off-the-wall but briefly listenable orchestrations of classic tunes, that's a harbinger of death. One wonders what life is supposed to look like.

Many people also have no idea how actual composition works.

wheels• 17 years ago

Not to mention that doing different forms of electronic accompaniment has been around for 40 years, and algorithmic composition for quite a while as well.

kwamenum864• 17 years ago

Real guy using it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaUQ4_kJBHw

The chord progressions are painfully boring but that guy seems pleased.

unalone10• 17 years ago

Any samples from a guy who actually is able to sing? That guy was nearly rapping.

Tichy2• 17 years ago

Only listened to the first part, but I think he might have a hit on his hands. Brilliant lyrics!

The last hit I witnessed in Germany (I rarely check) was something along the line "I count to three and take you home, come along we'll make a threesome" - people love that kind of lyrics...

gravitycop7• 17 years ago

like Songsmith is going to change how music is made. [...] the best music comes not from formula but from the human mind.

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=456490

'If you tried, if any Mind tried, could you impersonate my style?' the Chelgrian asked. 'Could you write a piece - a symphony, say - that would appear, to the critical appraiser, to be by me, and which, when I heard it, I'd imagine being proud to have written?' The avatar frowned as it walked. It clasped its hands behind its back. It took a few more steps. 'Yes, I imagine that would be possible.' [...]

'So what,' the Chelgrian asked, 'is the point of me or anybody else writing a symphony, or anything else?' [...]

'Ziller, are you concerned that Minds - AIs, if you like - can create, or even just appear to create, original works of art?'

unalone10• 17 years ago

You can analyze an existing progression. You cannot predict the possible future progression.

You could analyze Please Please Me and determine how to generate similar Beatlesy sounds. You couldn't predict Help. If you had Help, you could make Help sounds but you couldn't figure out that Rubber Soul was on its way. The sonic style changed constantly and evolved incredibly.

Or imagine trying to copy Frank Zappa. You might replicate a single song, but it wouldn't be possible to predict the next songs in a given album. He evolved and shifted too rapidly to follow.

sajidu• 17 years ago

MSFT, welcome to the interwebs!!!

Even Linus loves it :)

bd2• 17 years ago

Here is a post by Linus:

http://torvalds-family.blogspot.com/2009/01/fantastic.html

Billy Idol's "White Wedding" he mentions is indeed hilarious:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlCWo1qdTdE

kwamenum864• 17 years ago

In it's current state songsmith could not kill modern music. It does not sound organic enough. It has no soul. If music created by humans using music sequencers has its quirks. Songsmith music sounds very formulaic and unimaginative and becomes boring after the first verse or so even if the tune is catchy.

swombat2• 17 years ago

I get the feeling songsmith isn't aimed at real musicians... and for people with no musical skills whatsoever, it probably beats singing a cappela.

mechanical_fish4• 17 years ago

To heck with soul -- now that I've listened to several of the tracks in the original article, the problem with Songsmith is that it's hard to reverse-engineer a rhythm that you're singing against. [1] It mangles the rhythms in Roxanne, in which Sting's vocals are designed to play around and against the timing of the rhythm section, and its treatment of the first few seconds of Intergalactic are comedy gold, as it desperately tries to figure out the beat. It makes the Beasties' syncopation feel wickedly subversive. ("Wait", says the computer, "you're allowed to sing off the beat? You utter bastards.")

It's a hilarious simulation of the more painful aspects of the amateur music experience, [2] but it doesn't have the rhythmic chops to out-rap a five year old.

Maybe it would do better if we gave it a metronome.

---

[1] "hard" in the sense of "actually, I think it's logically impossible".

[2] If only metronomes were issued at birth. Though, actually, that's happening now: I have hope that Rock Band and DDR will help to raise an entire generation that has a sense of rhythm.

kwamenum864• 17 years ago

We have already established that Songsmith does not break any new musical ground...but the more I think about it this is hardly an impressive technological feat either. I have a Casio keyboard from the early nineties that has about 100 tunes from different genres. You can change the key of these songs as they are being played and it makes them sound like an entirely new creation. We have also been able to analyze vocals and determine the tone for a while. Songsmith basically slaps the two ideas together. This could have been in beta by 1995.

swombat2• 17 years ago

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YN9pGgg8YlQ&feature=relat...

Interesting... so part of Obama's rhetorical skill is to start his sentences on a beat.

Songsmith looks like a mostly useless piece of software from a musical point of view... I can't imagine any real musicians using it. But from a content-creation-for-the-masses point of view, it's clearly a hit. I look forward to seeing more crazy shit put together with this software.

nazgulnarsil2• 17 years ago

meter is an important aspect of public speaking. if you vary your meter at inappropriate times your speech doesn't come off as natural and flowing. OTOH if you maintain a rigid meter the whole time you sound robotic.

wallflower• 17 years ago

One of the secrets of public speaking is to pause. If you don't pause, you're not highlighting what should be construed as important.

mynameishere• 17 years ago

Here's the best one:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JM1GUk1SBmY

kirse• 17 years ago

Van Halen's Runnin' with the Devil:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8kxqMpGAL3I

1:45 in and 2:45 in are some highlights... Money back guaranteed if you're not crying after watching it.

raphar• 17 years ago

I love the product ad, lindked from the article. Sucks so much that I love it :D. And also: Is than an apple notebook??

andreyf• 17 years ago

Nice: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5nTFKSTAxo

trezor• 17 years ago

I guess this is a good place to mention Britney Spear's toxic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9S4O974qQo

I find it hilarious because of the total mismatch between the music and video.

nazgulnarsil2• 17 years ago

Does anyone else think that Eye of the Tiger actually sounded pretty good? >_> awaits criticism of musical taste

ssharp• 17 years ago

Let's not forget the second half of most modern songwriting - lyrics. Music certainly has MANY mathematical elements to it. There is no doubt that computers can do a lot of lifting in orchestrating and making arrangements just using basic music theory. Some of it may even be creative and useful. Most of it will be elevator arrangement trash.

Still, you're not going to be able to have computers write meaningful lyrics. A lot of "human" factors go into writting lyrics and the lyrical melody.

Microsoft Songsmith a Youtube Hit Machine

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