{"id":883,"date":"2024-09-22T15:16:31","date_gmt":"2024-09-22T15:16:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/andrew-may.com\/blog\/?p=883"},"modified":"2024-09-22T15:16:34","modified_gmt":"2024-09-22T15:16:34","slug":"a-few-more-experiments-in-creative-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/andrew-may.com\/blog\/2024\/09\/a-few-more-experiments-in-creative-ai\/","title":{"rendered":"A few more experiments in creative AI"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"AI<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This is a sequel to a blog post I wrote last year<\/a>, about the proliferation of free online tools that use AI to produce creative writing and imagery. Since then, I’ve made frequent use of the latter in particular, as it provides a quick and effortless way to obtain customized visuals for blog posts, videos etc. The results can often be strikingly imaginative, as in the above example from Bing Image Creator. The prompt in this case (for reasons that will become obvious in the course of this post) was “artwork for an album cover themed around ancient Egyptian mythology and space warfare<\/strong>“.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Until recently, a notable omission among creative AI tools (at the “free” level, at least) was anything that could produce convincingly realistic musical compositions. You could ask an AI chatbot to “write a song”, but that only gave you the lyrics – you had to compose the music yourself. But fortunately that’s changed now, and there’s at least one really excellent tool that produces impressive results even in the free demo mode – https:\/\/aimusic.so\/<\/a> .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As with an AI image creator, all you have to do is type in a simple prompt and the AI does everything else for you – musical score, lyrics, electronic orchestration and synthesized voice. After a few initial experiments, the first prompt I tried that worked really well was “A symphonic metal song about the pyramids and mythology of ancient Egypt<\/strong>“. After working away for a few minutes, the AI then came back with not one but two different songs (both with the same lyrics). Here’s the first of them:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pharaoh’s Wrath (1st version)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Musically, I think that’s a very impressive effort – just the balance I wanted between a hard rock sound in some places and a more sophisticated electronic sound in others. The AI-generated lyrics are pretty good too, but as they’re not very easy to make out, here they are in full:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

[Verse 1]
Serpent’s hiss; Anubis’ gaze;
Jackals hunt; End of days;
Temple crumbles; Pharaoh’s might;
Horus’ wings in endless flight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[Chorus]
Scepter falls; Blood-stained kings;
Cursed tombs and deathly rings;
Mortal souls; Gods’ design;
Power divine; Sands of time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[Verse 2]
Ra’s inferno; Eyes ablaze;
In Isis’ arms; Final praise;
Nile runs red; Fate’s cruel jest;
Pyramid’s heart; No rest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[Bridge]
Bones turn to dust; Heart weighs;
In Maat’s scale; No escape;
Eternal pain; Undead realm;
Crown and sword; Evil helm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[Verse 3]
Scarabs crawl; Shadows close;
Ancient lore; Royal foes;
Warlords rise; Slaves of old;
In death’s grasp; Embers cold.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The second version of “Pharaoh’s Wrath” was generally less interesting than the first, but there were a couple of things near the end that I liked: a rather exotic instrumental that actually sounds quite “Egyptian”, and a nice dramatic ending. So here’s just the second half of v2:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pharaoh\u2019s Wrath (2nd version, ending only)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

For a second experiment, I tried a more prescriptive prompt: “A military sci-fi song called Celestial Cyberstrike, male vocals, verses in heavy industrial metal style in D minor, but chorus in E minor in more melodic prog rock style<\/strong>“. I don’t think the result is quite as impressive as “Pharaoh’s Wrath”, but it’s still far better than anything I could do myself. The machine has made a reasonable effort to vary the style between the verse and chorus – and, judging by what my trusty ChordAI <\/a>mobile app says, it pulled off the change of key too. Here’s the result:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Celestial Cyberstrike<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

And for completeness, here are the lyrics:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

[Verse 1]
Battle cries echo through the void
Programmed rage soldiers deploy
Brutal code hearts are hollow joys
Man and machine nothing to destroy<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[Chorus]
Hear the stars lament and cry
In the void our fate we tie
Reach out through the dark divide
Together we move collide<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[Verse 2]
Gunfire dances digital reaper
Destruction codes sinking deeper
Lost souls ride this endless sleeper
In the void no dream’s a keeper<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[Bridge]
Silent echoes tear the night
Distant fires burning bright
Underneath the cold starlight
Courage finds its moment\u2019s flight<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[Verse 3]
Chaos reigns in circuits twisted
Every step by fate enlisted
We are broken dreams resisted
In the void where hope persisted<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is a sequel to a blog post I wrote last year, about the proliferation of free online tools that use AI to produce creative writing and imagery. Since then, I’ve made frequent use of the latter in particular, as it provides a quick and effortless way to obtain customized visuals for blog posts, videos … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “A few more experiments in creative AI”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[61,76],"class_list":["post-883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-algorithmic-composition","tag-artificial-intelligence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/andrew-may.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/andrew-may.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/andrew-may.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andrew-may.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andrew-may.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=883"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/andrew-may.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/883\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":963,"href":"https:\/\/andrew-may.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/883\/revisions\/963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/andrew-may.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andrew-may.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andrew-may.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}