THE CONNECTION BETWEEN MUSIC TECHNOLOGY & AI

The most exciting new advancements in music technology come from inventions in AI tech

Using AI tech to make music technology more accessible will open a new frontier for creatives to express themselves through music.

Music technology is a broad term that can encompass everything from the first instruments until the most recent advancements in AI tech. As defined by Oxford Bibliographies, “Technology in music can refer to instruments, whether acoustic, electric, or electronic; engraving and printing; sound recording and playback; broadcasting; software; and much else.” The plethora of uses for music technology only continues to advance as technology develops across the board. The most interesting recent development of music tech falls within AI tech, or artificial intelligence and machine learning.

The connection between music technology and AI technologies first began with Alan Turing’s computer-generated music in 1951. His computer generated well known melodies, like the nursery rhyme “Baa Baa Black Sheep.” In 1973, the MIT Experimental Music Studio, took things a few steps further with developments in digital synthesis and new impressive programming languages for music composition and creation. One of the biggest breakthroughs was with Experiments in Musical Intelligence, EMI, which used artificial intelligence to ‘learn’ the style of a composer by giving it music from that composer to analyze. After the AI tech had learned the style, it would create a new piece of music in the style of that composer.

This format of machine learning in music technology is one of the most impressive and practical uses of AI tech. The concept of teaching an AI how to compose music within certain boundaries and limits is important because it prevents the creation of dissonant sounds or compositions that simply don’t make sense.

The following track, I am AI, was created by AI Music Studio, an artificial intelligence-driven music creation studio. After directing the machine learning program on which genre, moods, and energy levels to take on, the AI output this piece.

Destructive, energetic, experimental drum-n-bass from the future, a future where musicians can work alongside machines to create groundbreaking new music projects:

Our AI Music Studio app follows a similar pattern to the one that was pioneered by EMI in 1980, however we have spent years on advancing the music technology to ensure that high quality tracks are outputted by the AI. For the AI Music Studio, these boundaries and limits range from instruments used, to moods captured, to energy levels emitted within each track.

Allowing the user to work with AI as a collaborator and co-creator is the next important step in advancing music technology. Of the many things we can learn from past experiments with music technology and AI, it is clear that music is ultimately a human creation, a form of both art and communication, that makes the most sense when it is created by humans. The role that AI tech can play in the creation of music comes from advancements in music technology which allow even more people to create quality music.

Whereas previously, music technology and music production were only for advanced artists and experts in the field, AI tech has now increased accessibility so even people with little to no production experience can create beautiful works. The AI Music Studio lets creators share these beautiful works, as the music in use is royalty-free, so creators can own and share their music anywhere without fear of copyright infringement.

Of all the advancements we have seen in music technology, over our lifetime and those before, one thing is clear: accessibility creates beauty. The more music, the more creators, the more beauty in art and lessons in stories shared. We don’t know what will come next but AI Music Studio is excited to lead the way forward, with AI and creators working hand-in-hand to cross new frontiers in music technology.

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