Google's Blob Opera AI Sings Carols and Helps Make Music Opera lovers can finally take an active part in their passion by creating it with the help of artificial intelligence. Launched by developer David Li and Google Arts & Culture, it encourages people to “create your own opera inspired song” with a group of four colourful plasticine-y blobs by dragging them up and down (to control the note) and left and right (to vary the vowel sound). The first: the AI harmonising the blobs. Artist David Li worked with Google’s Arts and Culture wing to create the Blob Opera. Blob Opera is a machine learning experiment by David Li in collaboration with Google Arts and Culture. You can unsubscribe at any time. sing like the pros. Similar AI is already used in select video games, with transitional music automatically created between two longer pre-recorded pieces. The Blob Opera slaps. And they could be easily applied to Blob Opera. Grammy Award winner Jacob Collier gets festive for the holidays with the Blob Opera, a machine learning experiment by David Li and Google Arts & Culture.Create your own holiday concert with just your mouse or trackpad—no music skills required → g.co/blob-opera Google has released a new app called blob Opera —a machine learning application that allows songwriters of all skill levels to compose songs—operas or otherwise—performed onscreen by four singing "blobs." No singing skills required! Google Blob Opera is a fun experiment that uses four colorful blobs that you control to create music. And if something sounds a little bit off, we notice it immediately. With Blob Opera, you have a … Blob Opera uses machine learning tech to create operatic sounds as you play with four blobby creatures that produce bass, tenor, mezzo-soprano, and soprano vocals. In a Christmas atmosphere, Google decided to give a gift to composers and music lovers this year end. More research into behavioural and neuroimaging modelling is needed before the psychological mechanisms behind our enjoyment of music are better understood. However, while doubtlessly intelligent and well-crafted, Blob Opera isn’t revolutionary. When did humans first start wearing clothes? “Sure, 90 per cent of it could sound absolutely terrible. Really. This is the Blob Opera. 0 Or forwards and backwards for different vowel sounds. Pay by Direct Debit and get two issues free*, Receive every issue delivered direct to your door with FREE UK delivery. You could build that phone app easily right now.”, “Also, instead of training the AI on opera singers, you could use barbershop quartets or other instruments. It is – and we cannot stress this enough – a whole lot of flubbery fun. Already have an account with us? Firstly, you – yes, you – could voice one of the blobs. Partly, this is because Google hasn’t publicly unveiled the code underpinning the experiment. Currently, however, we’re left listening to four blobs belting out Jingle Bells. A machine-learning experiment by David Li in collaboration with Google Arts and Culture, Blob Opera lets you compose and sing your very own opera … Blob Opera is a new machine learning experiment by artist David Li that lets you create your own festive song inspired by Opera on Google Arts & Culture. Additional singing from Ingunn Gyda Hrafnkelsdottir and John Holland-Avery. Blob Opera is an experiment using the latest web audio technology and may not perform optimally on older devices. “There’s also the possibility of creating genre mash-ups. At the flick of a switch, users can even see the blobs recreate Christmas classics such as The First Noel or Joy to the World. Should we be signalling our existence to alien life? So, instead of getting opera singers to sing a million different notes, they’re getting a computer to work out how to make a smooth transition.”, Fiebrink adds: “Until a few years ago we weren’t able to use machine learning to synthesise really convincing operatic singing voices. Modelled on 16 hours of singing from four professionals – Cristian Joel (tenor), Frederick Tong (bass), Joanna Gamble (mezzo‑soprano), and Olivia Doutney (soprano) – Blob Opera relies on AI to synthesise the noises you hear. The Google AI Blob Opera is an entertaining tool to mess with. Sing and share! Blob Opera is a machine learning experiment by David Li in collaboration with Google Arts & Culture that let’s anyone compose opera type music in a web browser. Bryan-Kinns has another idea. Blob Opera (artsandculture.google.com) 456 points by BerislavLopac 19 days ago | hide | past | favorite | 57 comments: stevebmark 19 days ago. This experiment pays tribute to and explores the original musical instrument: the voice. With Google Arts & Culture, artist David Li created a machine-learning experiment featuring a choir of singing blobs. In fact, the harmonising machine learning of Blob Opera was actually first developed in the 1980s. The rise of the conscious machines: how far should we take AI? It could create new genres of music we’ve never heard before,” he says. Two issues free when you subscribe to BBC Science Focus Magazine, The complex machine learning behind Blob Opera hasn’t taken us to peak internet just yet – existing music AI could make things even better. From that, the programme can work out that if a blob sings a certain note, what might be a nice set of next notes for the other blobs.”. But, if this data is collected, a music service in the future may be able to scan your brain and generate that perfect, life-changing song in an instant. The hidden genius of Blob Opera – and how it could get even smarter, Artificial Intelligence creates never-ending death metal, Google’s Magenta creates its first AI song, AI technology could turn thoughts into speech, AI: 5 of the best must-read artificial intelligence books. Developed by Google and AI artist David Li, the machine learning experiment allows users to compose their own operatic renditions through a quartet of colourful singing blobs. A quartet of opera signing blobs is at your command, courtesy of an interactive arts and culture offering from Google and artist David Li called Blob Opera. We developed a machine learning model trained on the voices of four opera singers in order to create an interactive experiment anyone can enjoy, regardless of musical skills. A Creative Holiday Season with Arts & Culture Experiments. Yes, blobs. You don’t have to know anything about music to make it sound good either because Google does it for you with that machine learning I … To us, the end-users, the tool is just a few blobs that you can drag around the create beautiful operatic music. ... Google recorded hours of classic opera singers, and used that data to train an AI model to know and mimic what an opera singer should sound like. Simply dragging a blob up and down can change its pitch, while moving it side-to-side produces a range of vowel sounds. Anytime you change pitch, the other blobs could follow. Found: Google's latest machine learning experiment is a strange but compelling opera simulator. Blob Opera is a machine learning experiment by David Li in collaboration with Google Arts and Culture. Turns out, in several intriguing ways. Google Arts and Culture and David Li present an experimental plaything that lets anyone create their own opera masterpiece. Google latest musical experiment in collaboration with by David Li; Blob Opera takes no music skills as your create your own composition with this ML model. For more information about how to do this, and how Immediate Media Company Limited (publisher of Science Focus) holds your personal information, please see our privacy policy. Blob Opera is an experiment in machine learning by David Li and Google. While we wouldn't go that far (there are plenty of amazing website layouts to be found online), there's no denying that the blobs are a delightful distraction – and just the tonic after the last few months. Google’s latest experiment turns you into a composer, and you don’t even need to know musical theory. Google For fans of the interactive treat Adult Swim Choir , its creator has just come out with an even more addictive time-waster: Blob Opera . You can drag them up and down, forward and backward to change the pitch and the vowel sounds respectively to create your own festive song. But, as Pearce admits, such software is many years away. It’s pretty adorable. December 2020 | By David Li, Artist in Residence at Google Arts & Culture. This experiment pays tribute to and explores the original musical instrument: the voice. The autotuning correcting errors in many pop hits is founded on similar algorithms. But it might not be immediately clear just how smart. This year wasn’t all bad. “That’s when you have two frames and you get a computer to create an intermediate frame resulting in an overall smoother animation. “Blob Opera is essentially doing that with sound. “It might not sound great for other people, but for that person, this music would be great.”. No singing skills required! Play four opera voices in real-time. Dubbed "Blob Opera," the gadget puts you in control … Simultaneously, the other blobs will also harmonise with this voice, responding in real-time to any new directions. You read that correctly: Blob Opera. Researchers like Dr Marcus Pearce Queen Mary University of London are attempting to take this technology much much further. This experiment pays tribute to and explores the original musical instrument: the voice. PLUS a free mini-magazine for you to download and keep. Glaciers on Mars reveal the Red Planet went through multiple ice ages, When is the next full moon? If you wish this really would be the Last Christmas you’re forced to endure Wham, Google‘s new Blob Opera offers a chance to create something a … Our daily newsletter arrives just in time for lunch, offering up the day's biggest science news, our latest features, amazing Q&As and insightful interviews. Google Arts & Culture 179K subscribers And then, using this information and an AI, we might be able to generate music in real-time that a given person would find pleasurable at that precise moment,” he says. Between the pandemic headlines, the last 12 months have seen huge leaps in space travel, quantum imaging and, of course, medicine. In short, Blob Opera is very very smart. But Google and DeepMind have made some massive strides in recent years.”. There are still a few hours of Christmas left—enough time to eat some more cookies, watch a movie, and record your own Christmas song with the Blob Opera.What’s a blob opera? But, for the moment, that’s all we could wish for. There's so much great stuff here: - The state machine that seems to handle all edge cases, both in things like the tutorial and also in the procedural singing It seems an impossible question after enjoying a blobby rendition of O Come, All Ye Faithful, but we’re asking it anyway: how could Blob Opera be improved? No singing skills required! The Google Arts & Culture initiative called Blob Opera enables us to create opera music in a very simple way. “You then use a machine learning algorithm that can find patterns in that data. Distraction of the day – four harmonious blobs, boinging up and down to bring you joyful music this Christmas. Does a computer know that it’s a computer? “It’s basically like ‘inbetweening’ in cartoon animation,” explains Prof Nick Bryan-Kinns from Queen Mary University of London. The second music algorithm likely at work? But it’s also because Blob Opera probably relies on two AI networks working so well you might not notice they’re there. Google apps Create your own opera inspired song with Blob Opera - no music skills required ! In announcing the new app on its website, Google suggests such compositions might just be the perfect holiday present. And Opera Singers presents you with 4 anthropomorphic blobs that you control create. 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