Discover my recipe for composing your own soundtracks, even without being a musician or an expert in artificial intelligence.

Growing up, we all wanted to learn to play a musical instrument at some point, whether it was the piano, violin, guitar, drums or saxophone.

But I was never good at any of these instruments.

Playing a musical instrument and creating my own songs remained a dream for me until artificial intelligence became available to the general public. The generation of images, texts and music has now become commonplace.

While surfing, I discovered AIVA, a company that uses machine learning technology to create songs. During the holidays, I created 12 musical compositions from scratch. The result of the AI is amazing!

Check out ‘Initiation’:

The 12 tracks :

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My choices

The 12 musical compositions

They are based on the 12 stages of the « Hero’s Journey », a concept established by Joseph Campbell. This is a mainly interesting basis for building the hero’s initiatory journey. This pattern is found in many stories from all over the world, in particular, in literary works and the film industry.

Schematically, the hero experiences the following sequences:

1. The hero is in an ordinary world
2. The hero is called to adventure, which is presented as a problem or a challenge.
3. The hero is initially reluctant, afraid of the unknown.
4. The hero is encouraged by a mentor. Sometimes the mentor also gives a magic weapon, but does not accompany the hero, who has to face the challenges alone.
5. The hero crosses the ‘threshold’ of the adventure, he enters an extraordinary world, he cannot turn back.
6. The hero undergoes trials, meets allies and enemies.
7. The hero reaches the most dangerous place, often deep inside, where the object of his quest is hidden.
8. The hero undergoes the ultimate test, facing death.
9. The hero takes the object of his quest.
10. The hero takes the road back, where sometimes it is still a question of escaping the vengeance of those from whom the object has been stolen.
11. The hero returns from the extraordinary world where he had ventured, transformed by the experience.
12. The hero returns to the ordinary world and uses the object of the quest to improve the world, thus giving meaning to the adventure

The emotions

I decided to associate each of these stages with a main emotion, using Robert Plutchik’s emotion wheel.

I then linked the emotions to a music key, thanks to some nuggets discovered by chance on the internet (https://ledgernote.com/blog/interesting/musical-key-characteristics-emotions/):

MUSICAL KEY	EMOTIVE EXPRESSION
A MAJOR	Joyful, Pastoral, Declaration of Love
A MINOR	Tender, Plaintive, Pious
AB MAJOR	Death, Eternity, Judgement
AB MINOR	Grumbling, Moaning, Wailing
B MAJOR	Harsh, Strong, Wild, Rage
B MINOR	Solitary, Melancholic, Patience
BB MAJOR	Joyful, Quaint, Cheerful
BB MINOR	Terrible, the Night, Mocking
C MAJOR	Innocently Happy
C MINOR	Innocently Sad, Love-Sick
C# MINOR	Despair, Wailing, Weeping
DB MAJOR	Grief, Depressive
D MAJOR	Triumphant, Victorious War-Cries
D MINOR	Serious, Pious, Ruminating
D# MINOR	Deep Distress, Existential Angst
E MAJOR	Quarrelsome, Boisterous, Incomplete Pleasure
E MINOR	Effeminate, Amorous, Restless
EB MAJOR	Cruel, Hard, Yet Full of Devotion
F MAJOR	Furious, Quick-Tempered, Passing Regret
F MINOR	Obscure, Plaintive, Funereal
F# MAJOR	Conquering Difficulties, Sighs of Relief
F# MINOR	Gloomy, Passionate Resentment
G MAJOR	Serious, Magnificent, Fantasy
G MINOR	Discontent, Uneasiness

The instrumentations

AIVA offers more than thirty different instrumentations, such as Electronic, Pop, Ambient, Rock, Fantasy, Jazz, Sea Song, Tango…

From the key and the instrumentation, let’s go for the generation of compositions directly with AIVA. Generating, listening, discarding, retaining, … this is the longest part of the work.

Which can be accompanied by some improvements: adjusting the BPM (beats per minute), deleting an introduction that is a bit long or lengthening a piece that is a bit short by generating new sequences, we are clearly in the finishing touches!

The last piece didn’t suit me. I wanted a ‘jazz’ atmosphere but Aiva’s suggestions were too cartoonish. I decided to import a track I love (GoGo Penguin), to force the composition from that specific influence. Artificial intelligence works wonders!
You get an original composition, even from a well-known track. And for the finishing touches, I replaced some of the instruments that were proposed by Aiva. For the melody, I tested the tuba, the bassoon and finally chose the cello.

BPM	Atmosphère (https://abbeyroadinstitute.nl/blog/emotion-in-music-part-ii-a-practical-approach/)
60 – 80	relaxing, introspective, even depressive, but also loving and less dramatic.
80 – 100	moderately alert and engaging, feelings of accomplishment, rewarding, and sometimes also relaxing.
100 – 120	lively, exciting or agitated situations, feelings of power.
120+	high energy situations, feelings of excitement, anger or drama.

Note: I also used Audacity to record the 12 tracks on a single track and Auphonic to equalise/enhance the whole.

The cover

Did I tell you that the cover was made with Craiyon, an artificial intelligence for the graphics?

To get this image (after multiple attempts and text modifications), here is the text I typed: high definition rainbow webtoon image of a person about to live a voyage of initiation.

Music and creativity

Countless studies have looked at how music affects our creativity; a positive state of mind, relaxation, inspiration and a little bit of concentration.

It’s up to you!