TARYN SOUTHERN:
'I AM A.I.'
Currently, A.I. is mainly being used to create functional music. However, singer-songwriter Taryn Southern is testing A.I.’s capabilities by using Amper Music's technology to create her new album.
Taryn first made a name for herself on YouTube but in recent years has turned towards telling stories about the future and helping companies do the same.
As well as being a musician, she describes herself as being a digital storyteller, future architect, VR/AR evangelist and general internet person. The 31-year-old has over half a million subscribers on YouTube and her videos have received more than 700 million views online.
As a result, this inspired Taryn to begin a project where she set out to create the world’s first album to be produced solely by her and the A.I.
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The album, titled ‘I Am A.I.’ is due for release in Spring 2018 and Taryn released the first single from the LP, Break Free in August 2017, which has received over 1.5 million views on YouTube.
Speaking about the album, Taryn said: “I've been working on a documentary about the brain for the past year and doing a lot of research on innovative technology. As a musician, I was incredibly fascinated by the developments in musical A.I., so I started reaching out to companies like Jukedeck, Amper, AI Music, Aiva, and Magenta to see what I could accomplish with their tools.
“The album really became a self-imposed challenge more than anything, and an opportunity to explore my ideas about the future in a creative format”, she added.
There have been many advantages of using A.I. as well as significant challenges which Taryn has faced along the way when trying produce this record. She said: “I suppose the major pro is having control over the creative process. It's part of my DNA. I don't have a traditional music background, so having the potential to create something, from scratch, by myself, that sounds good, is incredibly empowering.
“The cons, at this point, is that AI music tech is still in its infancy, so it still lacks a lot of important functionality and customisation that will actually allow for creators to infuse more creativity into the process. But that's all changing very quickly.”
Taryn chose to partner with Amper to create her new songs for the album due to it being simple to use and effective to produce great quality sounding music. Speaking about the recording process, the 31-year-old explained: “The process is different depending on the A.I. platform I'm working with. With my first album, I often started with lyrics and then built the music around that.
“Amper is probably the easiest one to use. I set parameters like BPM, key, mood, and genre, and from there, alter a song as many times as needed until I get sections I'm happy with. I then download the stems and arrange the music into a pop song structure. Finally, I write vocal melodies and lyrics to record over the track.”
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Taryn is a trailblazer in this new method of creating and producing music. The advantage of using A.I. as a producer is that it never sleeps and is ready to use at any time, night or day, whenever the singer has an idea. This could well become the future for music producing if Taryn’s project and future ones to come prove to be a success.
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CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO AUDIO CLIPS FROM THE INTERVIEW WITH TARYN SOUTHERN
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