Robogals Blog

Hello again,

It's the Mid-year Break and there are no university assessments (for now). Hooray!

Today, I'd like to share a music application that was shown in our Machine Learning course.

UJAM is an application that allows everyone - from novices to skilled musicians - to compose music. UJAM is able to learn and analyse a simple input melody (sung or played on an instrument) and generate options for accompaniments such as harmonies, bass line, and drum beats etc. The user is able to edit, save, and publish their newly created music. A neat explanation on how it works is given by Jon Stokes in the Wired Magazine:

"Before ujam’s AI can lay down accompaniment, it must figure out which notes the user is singing or playing. Once it recognizes them, the algorithm searches for chords to match the tune, using a mix of statistical techniques and hardwired musical rules. The stats are part of the software’s AI and can generate myriad chord progressions. The rules-based module then uses its knowledge of Western musical tropes to narrow the chord options to a single selection. ...

As ujam gathers more data on users’ preferences and musical tastes, programmers feed this info back into the system, improving its on-the-fly performance. In this respect at least, ujam is like a human: It gets better with practice."

Pretty cool, right? Go ahead and have a try.

Cheers,

Sarah