U of Waterloo Researchers Create AI to Help You Write Song Lyrics
Songwriters can find inspiration and new creative directions for their songwriting with technology developed by University of Waterloo researchers . LyricJam , a real-time system that uses artificial intelligence ( AI ) to generate lyric lines for live instrumental music , was recently created and released by members of the Ontario university ’ s Natural Language Processing Lab .
The lab , led by Professor Olga Vechtomova , has been researching creative applications of AI for several years . Their initial work led to the creation of a system that learns musical expressions of artists and generates lyrics in their style . Recently , Vechtomova , along with Waterloo graduate students Gaurav Sahu and Dhruv Kumar , developed technology that relies on various aspects of music – such as chord progressions , tempo , and instrumentation – to synthesize lyrics reflecting the mood and emotions expressed by live music . As a musician or a band plays instrumental music , the system continuously receives the raw audio clips , which the neural network processes to generate new lyric lines . The artists can then use the lines to compose their own song lyrics .
“ The purpose of the system is not to write a song for the artist ,” Vechtomova explains . “ Instead , we want to help artists realize their own creativity . The system generates poetic lines with new metaphors and expressions , potentially leading the artists in creative directions that they haven ’ t explored before .”
For more information or to try it , go to www . lyricjam . ai . For a conversation about LyricJam and AI ’ s potential in music creation with Vechtomova , listen to the Aug . 25 , 2021 episode of the Canadian Musician Podcast .
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