INDIANAPOLIS— Two IU professors have developed an AI music program and now it's being used to create a groundbreaking opera.
The music improvisation program is called AVATAR and WRTV visited IU Indianapolis's campus to find out how it works.
“At most, I’m just making sure it doesn’t go nuts,” said Jason Palamara a professor of music technology at the Herron School of Art and Design.
Palamara helped develop the technology.
“The idea behind it was the software would do the driving,” said Palamara.
Palamara has been working alongside Professor Scott Deal. Deal had an idea that you could take AI and use it as a musical partner. The two started working on it almost seven years ago.
While Deal plays the vibraphone, AVATAR listens to it and then plays its own music in the style of Deal.
“There’s no Beyonce' in AVATAR, there’s just Scott,” said Palamara. “That’s the real idea. If we were to work with another musician it models their own behavior and can be their own avatar basically.”
“It’s just going to advance music,” said Deal, a music and arts technology professor at the Herron School of Art and Design. “There’s a lot of people right now that are afraid AI is going to take over music but it’s not going to take over music. It’s just a tool.”
After developing AVATAR, they started using it to compose an opera called “Lexia: An AI Opera.”
“It’s a science fiction opera set 200 years in the future where it’s a bit dystopian, the planets heated up and there’s certain parts of the world where it’s hard to live in, there’s a lot of displaced people,” said Deal.
The opera is a one-woman show combining voice, an ensemble and music processed by AVATAR to dive into the topic of climate change. Deal hopes people take a positive message from the performance as well as showcasing what AI technology can do.
“And it will get people to want to use it when it’s ready,” said Deal.
“To see it all pay off in this big opera is really, really something,” said Palamara.
The debut of “Lexia” is January 11 at the Phoenix Theater in Indianapolis. It will have a second showing in February in Brooklyn, New York. To find out more you can visit this link.
MORE AI NEWS | Learning AI in college
