scholarly journals Artificial Intelligence & Popular Music: SKYGGE, Flow Machines, and the Audio Uncanny Valley

Arts ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 130 ◽  
Author(s):  
Melissa Avdeeff
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Popular Music ◽  
Markov Models ◽  
Uncanny Valley ◽  
New Era ◽  
Music Production ◽  
Music Generation

This article presents an overview of the first AI-human collaborated album, Hello World, by SKYGGE, which utilizes Sony’s Flow Machines technologies. This case study is situated within a review of current and emerging uses of AI in popular music production, and connects those uses with myths and fears that have circulated in discourses concerning the use of AI in general, and how these fears connect to the idea of an audio uncanny valley. By proposing the concept of an audio uncanny valley in relation to AIPM (artificial intelligence popular music), this article offers a lens through which to examine the more novel and unusual melodies and harmonization made possible through AI music generation, and questions how this content relates to wider speculations about posthumanism, sincerity, and authenticity in both popular music, and broader assumptions of anthropocentric creativity. In its documentation of the emergence of a new era of popular music, the AI era, this article surveys: (1) The current landscape of artificial intelligence popular music focusing on the use of Markov models for generative purposes; (2) posthumanist creativity and the potential for an audio uncanny valley; and (3) issues of perceived authenticity in the technologically mediated “voice”.

Gender Differences of Popular Music Production in Secondary Schools

2011 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Michael Abramo
Keyword(s):  
Gender Differences ◽  
Learning Styles ◽  
Music Education ◽  
Popular Music ◽  
Original Music ◽  
Music Production ◽  
Musical Production ◽  
Music Class ◽  
Opposite Gender

In this case study, the author inv estigated how students’ gender affected their participation in a secondary popular music class in which participants wrote and performed original music. Three same-gendered rock groups and two mixed-gendered rock groups were observ ed. Would students of different genders rehearse and compose differently? How would same-gendered processes compare to mixed-gendered processes? Research suggests that girls learn differently from boys and that gender—as distinct from sex—is formed in social env ironments. In research on popular music education, howev er, the participation of girls has been under-documented and under-theorized. This study found that boys and girls rehearsed and composed differently: Whereas the boys combined musical gestures and nonv erbal communication into a seamless sonic process, the girls separated talk and musical production. In the mixed-gendered groups, tensions arose because participants used different learning styles that members of the opposite gender misunderstood. Broadening popular music pedagogies to incorporate different practices is suggested.

Ghost Stories from the Uncanny Valley

2019 ◽  
pp. 117-132
Author(s):  
Tok Thompson
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Uncanny Valley ◽  
Ghost Stories ◽  
New Era ◽  
The Uncanny ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
History Of ◽  
Andrew Lang

This chapter proposes that we will soon find ourselves haunted by the ghosts of androids. Although ghost stories have been centrally studied throughout the history of the discipline of Folklore (perhaps most notably during the time of Andrew Lang in the British Folklore society), it appears we are quickly approaching a new era in ghosts: the ghosts of artificial intelligence. This chapter takes as its starting point the proposition of android ghosts, exploring the implications and possibilities emanating from this discussion. What sorts of ghosts will androids make?

scholarly journals Idols you can make: The player as auteur in Japan’s media mix

2021 ◽  
pp. 146144482110156
Author(s):  
Dorothy Finan
Keyword(s):  
Popular Music ◽  
Significant Part ◽  
Mobile Games ◽  
Mobile Game ◽  
Music Production ◽  
Contemporary Media ◽  
Media Mix

Japan has recently seen an upsurge in idol ikusei (nurturing) games: networked mobile games where one nurtures and produces an idol pop group. These games are a significant part of Japan’s contemporary ‘media mix’, influenced both by virtual pet games and by discourses of nurturing surrounding the production of ‘real’ girl idol groups by male producer-auteur figures. Previous analyses have considered affection for simulated or virtual girl idol figures as a detached longing for stylised characteristics ( moe). This article uses a case study of a mobile game at the centre of the Love Live! girl idol-nurturing simulation franchise to suggest that we cannot only speak of players’ affection for nurturing games’ characters in terms of postmodern disembodiment; we must also consider how in playing idol-nurturing games, players take the place of real male producer-auteur figures in Japanese popular music production, where discourses of gendered nurturing abound.

scholarly journals Learning the ‘tracker’ process: A case study into popular music pedagogy

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 211-235 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brendan Anthony ◽  
Paul Thompson ◽  
Tuomas Auvinen
Keyword(s):  
Popular Music ◽  
Digital Audio ◽  
Music Pedagogy ◽  
Online Technologies ◽  
Music Production ◽  
Digital Audio Workstation ◽  
Specialist Knowledge ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Professional Contexts

The ‘tracker’ production process is a modern form of music production agency where top-line songwriters work with music programmers called ‘trackers’, primarily within the confines of the digital audio workstation. In this case, production, songwriting and performance often happen concurrently, and collaboration involves the synthesis of ideas, musical negotiations and expertise in using digital and online technologies. In providing popular music production learning activities that translate to professional contexts, higher education institutions face a number of challenges, particularly where much of the collaboration is undertaken online. This article reports on a cohort of Bachelor of Popular Music students who undertook a tracker process module. Students’ perceptions of ‘engagement’ and ‘learning’ were captured via an assessment item and survey, and a themed analysis indicated that the pedagogy promoted the use of diverse social skills, was highly collaborative, relied both on specialist and non-specialist knowledge, and involved the use of digital and online communications.

Jaco Pastorius, the Electric Bass, and the Struggle for Jazz Credibility

2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 121-138
Author(s):  
Brian F. Wright
Keyword(s):  
Popular Music ◽  
Musical Style ◽  
Electric Bass ◽  
Public Persona

This article explores Jaco Pastorius’s efforts to legitimize himself as a jazz electric bassist. Even though the instrument had existed at the margins of jazz for decades, by the 1970s it was overwhelmingly associated with rock and funk music and therefore carried with it the stigmatized connotations of outsider status. Building on the work of Bill Milkowski, Kevin Fellezs, Lawrence Wayte, and Peter Dowdall, I situate Pastorius’s career within the broader context of 1970s jazz fusion. I then analyze how he deliberately used his public persona, his virtuosic technical abilities, the atypical timbre of his fretless electric bass, and his work as a composer and bandleader to vie for acceptance within the jazz tradition. As I argue, Pastorius specifically attempted to establish his jazz credibility through his first two solo albums, initially by disassociating himself from his own instrument, and then by eventually abandoning the musical style that had made him famous. Ultimately, Pastorius’s story serves as a useful case study of the tangible ramifications of authenticity disputes and the complicated ways in which musicians have attempted to navigate contested musical spaces within popular music.

Trading faces: Complete AI face doubles avoid the uncanny valley

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Welker ◽  
David France ◽  
Alice Henty ◽  
Thalia Wheatley
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Sexual Orientation ◽  
Uncanny Valley ◽  
Torture Survivors ◽  
The Uncanny ◽  
The Creation ◽  
Full Face ◽  
The Impact

Advances in artificial intelligence (AI) enable the creation of videos in which a person appears to say or do things they did not. The impact of these so-called “deepfakes” hinges on their perceived realness. Here we tested different versions of deepfake faces for Welcome to Chechnya, a documentary that used face swaps to protect the privacy of Chechen torture survivors who were persecuted because of their sexual orientation. AI face swaps that replace an entire face with another were perceived as more human-like and less unsettling compared to partial face swaps that left the survivors’ original eyes unaltered. The full-face swap was deemed the least unsettling even in comparison to the original (unaltered) face. When rendered in full, AI face swaps can appear human and avoid aversive responses in the viewer associated with the uncanny valley.

Humanism and Music

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher M. Driscoll
Keyword(s):  
Artificial Intelligence ◽  
Popular Culture ◽  
Popular Music ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Contemporary Music ◽  
Theoretical Relationship ◽  
Rock Band ◽  
Historical Developments ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter explores the relationship between humanism and music, giving attention to important theoretical and historical developments, before focusing on four brief case studies rooted in popular culture. The first turns to rock band Modest Mouse as an example of music as a space of humanist expression. Next, the chapter explores Austin-based Rock band Quiet Company and Westcoast rapper Ras Kass and their use of music to critique religion. Last, the chapter discusses contemporary popular music created by artificial intelligence and considers what non-human production of music suggests about the category of the human and, resultantly, humanism. These case studies give attention to the historical and theoretical relationship between humanism and music, and they offer examples of that relationship as it plays out in contemporary music.

Case Study: The Southern Oral History Program

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacquelyn Dowd Hall ◽  
Kathryn Nasstrom
Keyword(s):  
Oral History ◽  
American South ◽  
New Era ◽  
Chapel Hill ◽  
Integral Role ◽  
The American South ◽  
And Gender ◽  
History Department ◽  
The University

A case study of the southern oral history program is the essence of this chapter. From its start in 1973 until 1999, the Southern Oral History Program (SOHP) was housed by the history department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), rather than in the library or archives, where so many other oral history programs emerged. The SOHP is now part of UNC's Center for the Study of the American South, but it continues to play an integral role in the department of history. Concentrating on U.S. southern racial, labor, and gender issues, the program offers oral history courses and uses interviews to produce works of scholarship, such as the prize-winning book Like a Family: The Making of a Southern Cotton Mill World. The folks at the Institute for Southern Studies tried to combine activism with analysis, trying to figure out how to take the spirit of the movement into a new era.

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