Whether you鈥檙e a frustrated songwriter or a shower-time crooner, you may long to hear your lyrics put to music. New software from Microsoft promises to provide just that 鈥� instant musical accompaniment to singing.
The software, called MySong, was developed by and at Microsoft鈥檚 research lab in Redmond, Washington, US, and at the University of Washington in Seattle.
鈥淭he idea is to let a creative but musically untrained individual get a taste of song writing and music creation,鈥� Morris told New 杏吧原创. 鈥淭here was nothing out there that could take a sung vocal melody as an input and then generate appropriate chords to accompany it.鈥� (.)
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Their software does two things: it generates a file containing the sequence of sung notes 鈥� a process known as 鈥減itch tracking鈥� 鈥� then uses that sequence to work out a suitable musical backdrop 鈥� a technique called 鈥渃hord probability computation鈥�.
Hear an example of , MySong鈥檚 and after passing the arrangement through a program called .
鈥楨levator music鈥�
Since people rarely sing at precise frequencies, MySong compares a sung melody to the 12 standard musical notes. It then feeds an approximate sequence of notes to the system鈥檚 chord probability computation algorithm. This algorithm has been trained, through analysis of 300 rock, pop, country and jazz songs, to recognise fragments of melody and chords that work well together, as well as chords that compliment each another.
Because there is no single 鈥渃orrect鈥� chord accompaniment for any vocal melody, MySong produces a variety of chord sequence and possible accompaniments. To move between different accompaniments, a user slides an on-screen bar for 鈥渉appy factor鈥� and 鈥渏azz factor鈥�.
鈥淚 suspect musicians will argue that this is another step towards homogenised elevator music for all,鈥� says Peter Bentley, a computer scientist at University College London, whose team has previously coaxed computers into improvising jazz melodies. 鈥淏ut I see a big market for this, whether it鈥檚 liked by musicians or not.鈥�
Cellphone version?
Researcher and composer of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is also impressed with the system. 鈥淚nteracting with a music creation system by using our own singing voice is the most interesting aspect to this software,鈥� he says.
鈥淭he voice is our most intuitive and intimate interface and it鈥檚 one that has been curiously under-exploited in interactive systems,鈥� Machover adds.
For MySong to be useful to untrained singers, however, Machover reckons it will need to be very forgiving for those who are 鈥渘ot be perfectly in-tune or accurate鈥�.
Microsoft has yet to decide when or how it to market the technology. 鈥淭here is nothing computationally demanding about MySong,鈥� says Morris. 鈥淚t could even run on a cellphone.鈥�
MySong was demonstrated at the annual meeting in Florence, Italy, this week.
