New EP: Songs About Coding

02 May 2024

I've just published a new EP called Songs About Coding, created with artificial intelligence.

In the last few years, we've seen the rise of generative AI, including ChatGPT that generates text and tools like Dall-E and Stable Diffusion that create images. I combined them for my Bedtime Stories project. Now an app called Udio enables you to create complete songs based on a text prompt, including the lyrics, melody and musical performance.

It's more audacious than I dared dream when I was writing my novel Earworm, originally published in 2007. In the book, a record label comes up with a way to create computer-generated music, tailored for each fan. The book predated the rise in generative artificial intelligence, so the story uses a combination of technologies including lifting blog posts for lyrics, using melodies created with a decades-old type-in program, and naming bands after spammers, who were prolific then and often had highly amusing names.

Crucially, in my story, there still needed to be a human element. Is that the case now, with the rise of AI?

I tasked Udio with creating a series of songs in various styles about coding. In particular, I prompted it to create an 80s pop song about programming the Amstrad CPC computer, an acoustic song about debugging, and 1950s style songs about the Raspberry Pi.

The results are impressive. I did do some editing to fix the song structure, but I've featured some of them without any changes (apart from mastering).

Technologies like this are empowering for people who want to make music and don't have the skills to do so. You can give Udio your own lyrics, so if you're a lyricist without a collaborator, you can still create finished songs. As a musician, you can create music or loops that you incorporate into your own creations.

However, it seems likely that this will take work away from some professional musicians. Those working in library music and commercial commissions seem most vulnerable. Illustrators who are members of the Society of Authors are already reporting that they're losing work to AI.

Listen to the EP here! It's a fascinating demonstration of what AI can do today and it raises many questions. I woke up this morning with one of the songs in my head, so they're quite catchy, at least after a few listens.

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