Blob Opera is a machine learning experiment by David Li in collaboration with Google Arts and Culture. 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. Found: Google's latest machine learning experiment is a strange but compelling opera simulator. This experiment pays tribute to and explores the original musical instrument: the voice. Blob Opera is oddly satisfying to listen to on repeat. “The Google code hasn’t been released, but most such computer harmonisers rely on a large dataset of existing harmonies,” says Dr Rebecca Fiebrink from the Creative Computing Institute at University of the Arts London. Pay by Direct Debit and get two issues free*, Receive every issue delivered direct to your door with FREE UK delivery. Partly, this is because Google hasn’t publicly unveiled the code underpinning the experiment. This year wasn’t all bad. Blob Opera is an experiment using the latest web audio technology and may not perform optimally on older devices. 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." As Google says: “In the experiment, you don’t hear their voices, but the machine learning model’s understanding of what opera singing sounds like, based on what it learnt from them.”. But now we’ve all been unexpectedly gifted 2020’s crowning achievement: Blob Opera. Tenor Christian Joel, bass Frederick Tong, mezzo-soprano Joanna Gamble and soprano Olivia Doutney. But that other 10 per cent? Blob Opera is a machine learning experiment by David Li in collaboration with Google Arts and Culture. Google Arts and Culture and David Li present an experimental plaything that lets anyone create their own opera masterpiece. Artist David Li worked with Google’s Arts and Culture wing to create the Blob Opera. Play four opera voices in real-time. 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? This is the Blob Opera. Google Blob Opera is a fun experiment that uses four colorful blobs that you control to create music. Already have an account with us? It’s pretty adorable. This might only be the start of the AI music revolution. Google Arts & Culture 179K subscribers You could easily pair this AI opera singing with music of other genres, like AI-created drum and bass loops. 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. But although effortless to use, it was no easy feat to build. 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 … 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. Firstly, you – yes, you – could voice one of the blobs. ... 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. Google apps Create your own opera inspired song with Blob Opera - no music skills required ! 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. The first: the AI harmonising the blobs. 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. 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? The Blob Opera slaps. Using AI music for evil — While the Google Blog Opera is unequivocally a Good Thing, developments in music-based machine learning isn't always a great idea. December 2020 | By David Li, Artist in Residence at Google Arts & Culture. David Li, thee talented animator behind the stretchy elastic Morty head and the interactive choir of singing lips, partnered with Google Arts & Culture to create a very festive interactive animated “Blob Opera”.In order to make the animated blobs sing, the viewer virtually pulls up on one of four different blobs that sing at different pitches depending on how high they are pulled. Blob Opera is an experiment in machine learning by David Li and Google. 0 Mind design: could you merge with artificial intelligence? Today's stories were merely delayed by reader eVr when he shared this amusing new web app from Google. You read that correctly: Blob Opera. You can unsubscribe at any time. Only recently, a patent filed by Spotify appears to indicate the company is looking into providing AI-generated music as a cheaper alternative to licensed artists. Really. In fact, the harmonising machine learning of Blob Opera was actually first developed in the 1980s. 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 . Similar AI is already used in select video games, with transitional music automatically created between two longer pre-recorded pieces. “It would actually be pretty easy,” says Fiebrink. 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. Researchers like Dr Marcus Pearce Queen Mary University of London are attempting to take this technology much much further. In the experiment you don’t hear their voices, but the machine learning model’s understanding of what opera singing sounds like, based on what it learnt from them. “There’s also the possibility of creating genre mash-ups. “Blob Opera is essentially doing that with sound. You could even have a blob K-pop group – because who doesn’t want their own K-pop boy band harmony?”. 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 … Between the pandemic headlines, the last 12 months have seen huge leaps in space travel, quantum imaging and, of course, medicine. 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. Currently, however, we’re left listening to four blobs belting out Jingle Bells. 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). Look out for your Lunchtime Genius newsletter in your inbox soon. Google says that the Blob Opera will only work in browsers and on machines that rock the latest web technology, and may not work on mobile devices. 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 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. An interactive vocal quartet of Blobs – yes, Blobs – has been created by Google. Does a computer know that it’s a computer? In a Christmas atmosphere, Google decided to give a gift to composers and music lovers this year end. Tenor, Christian Joel, bass Frederick Tong, mezzo-soprano Joanna Gamble and soprano Olivia Doutney recorded 16 hours of singing. Dubbed "Blob Opera," the gadget puts you in control … Crafted by artist David Li in conjunction with Google’s Arts and Culture team, the Blob Opera features four colorful Blob singers in the roles of soprano, mezzo-soprano, tenor and bass. 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. Blob Opera is a machine learning experiment by David Li in collaboration with Google Arts and Culture. It is – and we cannot stress this enough – a whole lot of flubbery fun. That’s because, as humans, we’re especially tuned to human voices. Your lunar astronomy guide. But, as Pearce admits, such software is many years away. Glaciers on Mars reveal the Red Planet went through multiple ice ages, When is the next full moon? Discover our latest special editions covering a range of fascinating topics from the latest scientific discoveries to the big ideas explained. 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. Simultaneously, the other blobs will also harmonise with this voice, responding in real-time to any new directions. More research into behavioural and neuroimaging modelling is needed before the psychological mechanisms behind our enjoyment of music are better understood. In short, Blob Opera is very very smart. “That’s when you have two frames and you get a computer to create an intermediate frame resulting in an overall smoother animation. 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 No singing skills required! 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. No singing skills required! But Google and DeepMind have made some massive strides in recent years.”. When did humans first start wearing clothes? 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. Google's Blob Opera has done down a storm online, with many taking to Twitter to declare that the internet has finally peaked. The Google Arts & Culture initiative called Blob Opera enables us to create opera music in a very simple way. ‘ Blob Opera ’ is a wonderfully weird new tool starring four colourful Blobs who have been programmed to sing together in four-part harmony. The rise of the conscious machines: how far should we take AI? 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. In announcing the new app on its website, Google suggests such compositions might just be the perfect holiday present. Thanks! Drag the blobs up and down to change pitch. Additional singing from Ingunn Gyda Hrafnkelsdottir and John Holland-Avery. Play four opera voices in real time. To us, the end-users, the tool is just a few blobs that you can drag around the create beautiful operatic music. “It’s basically like ‘inbetweening’ in cartoon animation,” explains Prof Nick Bryan-Kinns from Queen Mary University of London. 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. The second music algorithm likely at work? 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. It could create new genres of music we’ve never heard before,” he says. 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. But it’s also because Blob Opera probably relies on two AI networks working so well you might not notice they’re there. 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 … Simply dragging a blob up and down can change its pitch, while moving it side-to-side produces a range of vowel sounds. Listen to some of the brightest names in science and technology talk about the ideas and breakthroughs shaping our world. Anytime you change pitch, the other blobs could follow. 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.”. As you move your finger up you can change the pitch of the singing blobs. “You then use a machine learning algorithm that can find patterns in that data. “You could run a really simple pitch tracker on your voice in real-time and use the harmonisation component from Blob Opera. A Creative Holiday Season with Arts & Culture Experiments. Or forwards and backwards for different vowel sounds. But, for the moment, that’s all we could wish for. And all within a standard internet browser. It could sound absolutely amazing!”. Sing and share! Turns out, in several intriguing ways. Instead of making people sing comforting operatic songs, the Blob Opera makes four multi-colored blobs (yes, blobs!) This experiment pays tribute to and explores the original musical instrument: the voice. And they could be easily applied to Blob Opera. With Google Arts & Culture, artist David Li created a machine-learning experiment featuring a choir of singing blobs. No singing skills required! Blob Opera (artsandculture.google.com) 456 points by BerislavLopac 19 days ago | hide | past | favorite | 57 comments: stevebmark 19 days ago. And all within a standard internet browser. 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. Google’s latest experiment turns you into a composer, and you don’t even need to know musical theory. sing like the pros. The autotuning correcting errors in many pop hits is founded on similar algorithms. Another machine learning model lets the blobs respond to and harmonise your input in real time. Distraction of the day – four harmonious blobs, boinging up and down to bring you joyful music this Christmas. And if something sounds a little bit off, we notice it immediately. 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. With Blob Opera, you have a … “My expertise is modelling the musical mind, trying to crack why we enjoy it in the first place – what are the brain mechanisms involved in enjoying music? Should we be signalling our existence to alien life? The company has just launched Blob Opera, a … Guide the pitch and vowel sound of our four festive blobs who stand ready to transform your musical ideas (no matter how good or bad) into beautiful harmonies. Play four voices with the help of machine learning. Sign in to manage your newsletter preferences. This experiment pays tribute to and explores the original musical instrument: the voice. Well, that was not the idea when Google created Blob Opera. Yes, blobs. 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. Google's Blob Opera project allows music lovers to hit high notes Artificial Intelligence and the voices of four trained opera singers give everyone the chance to embark on an operatic adventure Play four opera voices in real time. 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. But it might not be immediately clear just how smart. Bryan-Kinns has another idea. Something much more complicated: an AI that makes it sound natural as the blobs move between notes. 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. The process started with recording four opera singers and then feeding 16 hours of info to a machine-learning algorithm. 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