A Duet with AI: "Existential Convergence" for GenAI & Violin ('Genflections' Movement 3)

In a world where emergent Generative AI is starting to impact many areas of our lives and Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) is potentially around the corner, "Genflections" is a thought(-provoking) experiment exploring the roles and relationship between humans and AI in the classical music composition and performance process.
The work is scored for acoustic violin and GenAI, the latter using Meta's open-source MusicGen and AudioGen models within the AudioCraft framework. The general composition process involved creating short (30 seconds or less) AI clips using text-based prompts and/or grounded on other clips of music (created either by the human composer or AI). The human notated identifiable scales & melodies and composed countermelodies and/or rulesets for improvisation. The resulting set of final cuts were processed and arranged by the human into three cohesive and thematic movements; these have been pre-recorded for playback during a live performance while a human violinist plays along. The other project artifacts were also a collaboration between human and AI: images (incorporated into the video recording or played back via slideshow during a live performance) were created via Bing Copilot/OpenAI's DALL-E and titles & program notes are of human origin.
The third movement ("Existential Convergence") invokes shades of Charles Ives' "The Unanswered Question." This is fully intentional: on one level, it functions as a commemoration of the upcoming 150th anniversary of his birth and the 80th of his death in 2024. On a deeper level, it serves as a similar statement of existentialism, from the perspective of the human as well as the AI. At the start of the movement, each entity stands on its own but by the end, the two have merged - perhaps this is a foreshadowing of our future but perhaps not. At the inflection point just before the merge, the old hymn "Watchman, Tell Us of the Night" is the last individual statement of identity from the human and is a final tip of the cap to Ives (the hymn appeared in his First Violin Sonata and Fourth Symphony). The sentiment of the movement starts from a dystopian mood gradually transitioning to a serene conclusion, reflected in the harmony and imagery. In conclusion, it may be more apropos to think upon this movement as "The Unquestioned Answer."
Credits:
Human Composer: Timothy O'Neill
AI Composer: Meta (Audiocraft/MusicGen/AudioGen)
Violinist: Timothy O'Neill
Prompt Engineer: Timothy O'Neill
AI Graphic Artist: Microsoft / OpenAI (Bing Copilot/DALL-E)
Audio Production: Timothy O'Neill
Video Production: Timothy O'Neill
Quality Assurance: Monique Garza O'Neill
Recorded on 11/25/2023 in Sarasota, FL
#genai #aimusic #violinist #electroacoustic #electronicmusic #audiovisual
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[@MO-jl9rg]

My favorite movement. Truly speaks to the soul.