Published in News
Microsoft kills off the backing band
Software is all you need, not love
Boffins at Microsoft Labs have developed software which allows punters to have their own back-up band.
The software, “My Song,” is going to be targeted toward untrained singers. It takes a sung melody and using a probability computation algorithm, generates an appropriate chord accompaniment. The big idea is to let a creative but musically untrained individual get a taste of song writing and music creation.
According to New Scientist, there was no software that could take a sung vocal melody as an input and then generate appropriate chords to accompany it. MySong compares a sung melody to the 12 standard musical notes. It then looks at an approximate sequence of notes to the system's chord probability computation algorithm.
This algorithm has been trained, through analysis of 300 rock, pop, country and jazz songs, to recognise fragments of melody and chords that work well together, as well as chords that compliment each another. Of course, it is assuming that when you program the beast you do not sing like my dad in the shower. Otherwise, your backing band will sound like a herd of wounded Wildebeests charging through the Serengeti plain.