AI continues to write Beethoven's unfinished symphony

"The 10th Symphony" Beethoven half-written, perfected by AI, was released on the 250th anniversary of his birth.

The work, studied by a group of composers and engineers for two years, was introduced to the public on October 9 in Bonn, Germany - Beethoven's hometown. On Youtube, the majority of the audience praised the song. Account Sally Nylund commented: "What I'm listening to right now is Beethoven's music." "I like the use of the organ in the medley. I agree with many that the 10th Symphony contains nostalgia, Beethoven's homage to Bach and Handel," wrote John Bader. Others praised the product as interesting but lacked the subtle connection between the pieces like those of Beethoven's works.

In an article in The Independent published on October 14, Professor Ahmed Elgammal of Rutgers University (USA) - the project's initiator - said he knew there would be people who disagreed with the notion that the art of overcoming algorithms, WHO. However, he thinks artificial intelligence is a tool that opens the door for artists to express themselves in new ways.

Ahmed Elgammal came up with the idea to continue writing the 10th Symphony in 2019. He contacted Dr. Matthias Roeder, Director of the Karajan Institute, an institution in Austria, to present the idea. Mr. Roeder assembled a research team, including Austrian composer Walter Werzowa - who was in charge of the composition ideas for the work. Composer Mark Gotham copied Beethoven's sketches, processing all of his work to create an input source. Robert Levin - a musicologist at Harvard University - also participated. He is a pianist who has participated in completing a number of pieces by Mozart and Johann Sebastian Bach.

Portrait of Beethoven painted by artist Joseph Karl Stieler.

Professor Ahmed Elgammal said the work faced many obstacles because the AIs at that time were still simple and could not perform many complex operations. They spend a lot of time "training" the AI ​​to understand the composer's compositional style, how he develops notes into vibrant symphonies, quartets, and sonatas. For example, the AI reference building from Beethoven Symphony No. years motifs four note "short-short-short-long" repeat. In addition, the AI ​​also learns to connect, arrange parts, and assign instruments to each different piece. They performed many test sessions for experts and researchers before announcing the project.

Beethoven died in 1827, three years after completing his Ninth Symphony. He wrote sketches and some ideas for the 10th Symphony, but his health deteriorated. In 1998, musicologist Barry Cooper studied 250 of Beethoven's sketches and found his style to continue the first and second movements of the 10th Symphony. However, this version does not. popular.

According to Times magazine , artificial intelligence has been associated with music for a long time, but has only been widely applied in recent years. Since 1951, computer science pioneer Alan Turing has built a machine that generates three simple tunes. In the 1990s, David Bowie made music with a digital app, capable of generating random lyrics, for inspiration. In 2018, Francois Pachet released a pop album composed by artificial intelligence - Hello, World. A year later, experimental singer-songwriter Holly Herndon received critical acclaim for Proto , the album she harmonized with an AI version of herself. However, many people still believe that AI cannot create classics. In 2016, the song Daddy's Carlyrics written by AI, imitating The Beatles' style, was criticized as "messy". In Vietnam, engineer Nguyen Hoang Bao Dai's AI model, launched earlier this year, can write 10 songs in a second.