Artificial Intelligence That Composes Classical Music
Until recently, computers haven’t been the main conductors of artistic expression, rather just the tools we use to facilitate artistic expressions. The various art mediums like music and film have long been untouched by these electronic devices until now. In the age of AIs, no field seems to be safe anymore.
The Luxembourg startup Aiva Technologies has developed an AI called Aiva (Artificial intelligence Virtual Artist), which is now able to independently compose musical scores used in films or video games.
How it Works
The company programmers feed Aiva with thousands of classical music pieces. It has already learned over 15.000 of them. The AI is programmed with deep learning algorithms which allows her to recognize and understand certain patterns. After, it is able to predict the flow of a melody and can calculate mathematical rules of the musical style. At the end, the AI is ready to compose her own piece.
And why does the startup focus only classical music? First off, because many films and video games use classical music as a background for their story. And secondly, money.
Most of the musical partitions are copyright-expired and Aiva can be taught without additional costs. However, the AI doesn’t just compose random pieces. The client can select the desired music style. Whether the piece will be more reminiscent of Mozart or Bach or even a mixture of both.
Where Can You Hear Aiva’s Music?
Aiva has composed music for the AI NVIDIA conference and the theme music for the mobile game Pixelfield by Epic Stars. You can also relax listening to the pieces of its music on SoundCloud. Aiva Technologies was part of the European Film Market initiative during the 2017 Berlinale, which aims to connect startups with established film industries.
However, Aiva’s main purpose is not to replace human composers, but to provide suggestions and to help those who suffer from writer’s block. Nonetheless, the possibility of producing music solely using Aiva to mitigate costs can’t be completely ruled out.
Artificial Intelligence and Creativity
The virtual artist refers its compositions only to past pieces of work. Although it can compose seemingly new pieces by linking various known elements together it isn’t yet able to compose meaningful and truly unique music.
In the age of modern pop music, we are already experiencing how everything revolves around the sounds of the past and it is rare to hear completely new genres and innovative styles of music. Despite her potential, Aiva is yet another tool that keeps us in the eternal circle of the cultural achievements of the past.