A.I. Plays Bill Evans (and creates a New Jazz Subgenre)

and so how have you felt this week are you still feeling anxious how is that going yeah kind of I don't know there's this anxious energy this excitement bubbling up inside me the only Solace music you know especially when it's Bill Evans on the piano uh that's what really settles my soul but if it brings you peace then push forward with everything you've got dive into the genius of Bill Evans all day long like a pine like the wind one must find calm by any means necessary yes yes I know but um I

already have all of Bill Evans interpretations memorized I would love to hear new things but well as you know it's been a while since he left us since he passed on to a better life um for him of course not for us his fans but wait a moment have you heard of nobody and the computer what nobody and who I have no idea what you're talking about it's music music created with artificial intelligence and they have this new video where the AI tries to recreate The Elegant Style of the one and only Bill

Evans artificial intelligence attempting to perform Bill Evans music my goodness I can't even imagine what that would be like I must see this immediately okay then welcome to [Music] nobody hello buddies friends fellow Travelers here I am again with you to share a new adventure a new video in this exorbitant journey of merging the world of of music with artificial intelligence and this time I bring you something special something super interesting because we are going to make music with AI draw

ing inspiration from the finest pianist Of All Times none other than the incomparable Bill Evans yes yes the favorite musician of your favorite musicians favorite musician and yes I know you're probably feeling skeptical and thinking oh no dear God this is surely going to sound awful and I understand because Bill was special with a style complicated to replicate by a soulless machine but give me a chance an opportunity because we are going to try to pay tribute to him humbly because Bill deserve

s it because he was one of the Paramount influences in jazz celebrated for his sensitive and introspective approach to the piano and also for the poetic Act of ingesting cigarettes amidst his performances no sorry it's a joke apologies but the AI does have its moments of glitches Bill possessed a remarkable sense of humor so he would have certainly appreciated that joke anyways Let Us carry on with the solemn proceedings his Ascent to prominence began in the late 1950s particularly after his ten

ure with the Miles Davis sexet here he played an instrumental role in the creation of kind of blue an album that stands as one of the bestselling Jazz records of all time time Evan's artistic identity was marked by his use of impressionistic harmonies echoing the essence of classical maestros like Claude deusi and Maurice Ravel yet firmly rooted in the soul of jazz his impact on jazz is immeasurable he revolutionized the role of the piano within the Jazz mil despite his personal battles with dru

g addiction he continued to perform and record with fervor until his passing in 1980 his legacy endured not only through his recordings but also in the lofty standards he set for jazz pianism and Trio Synergy all right all very Charming we uh we adore it but we're eager for the AI to channel bill so we can bask in a bit of that Delight okay okay it's true I've strayed from the path let's focus turn our attention to our true passion to delve into the depths of the code and unearth the most Exquis

ite AI gen erated music imaginable are you ready for this okay to begin we will compile a selection of Bill evans's solo piano performances and fine-tune meta's music gen model with them yes that's right we make the AI model listen to our beloved Bill's performances over and over again until it's able to generate new compositions in the style of the genius pianist a sort of Bill gen and you might be asking yourself hm what will that sound like well you heard something in the introduction of this

video but the good part is that you're going to be able to generate your own bill gens look for this we're going to use our beloved collab Google's platform for using powerful machines in the cloud and sharing our code check it out it's super easy here we have the code in the notebook that's quite fascinating take a look the first code cell includes a video guiding you on its usage and then we proceed to execute each cell sequentially it is establishes a connection to your Google Drive we downl

oad all essential libraries and here are the various fine tunings I've conducted let's take a moment for instance to listen to what it produces in the fine tuning We performed with Bill Evans playing [Music] solo [Music] yes yes I know there's something there something deep 15 seconds where you can hear that jazz Vibe but with influences from classical music incredible more piano generation okay but this time I'm going to set it to generate 30 seconds and we'll use ambient as the prompt to see w

hat vibe it creates let's [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] listen yeah incredible it's akin to Bill Evans performing a piece by John Cage complete and with percussive strikes on the piano I'm extremely thrilled it's sophisticated ambient music highly original but let's Press On Let's Explore More fine tuning with music from Billy let's try this fine tuning done with this album alone a solo piano album recorded in 1975 let's listen to the AI inspired by that [Music] album like it I f

ind it appealing it feels like original music that could serve as inspiration as if we were engaging in a dialogue with Bill Evans and he communicated through chords and Melodies but let's proceed take a look at this piece generated from from a fine tuning of various Bill Evans performances with his trios which means in addition to the piano including a double Bas and [Music] drums [Music] well there's a certain Essence captured clearly not matching the caliber of those Jazz Legends yet it posse

sses a unique flare a foundation for further exploration and as an aside an idea sparked in my mind because well as you're aware I'm inclined to explore beneath the surface imagine if we employed a different artificial intelligence model to initially isolate the instruments subsequently transitioning into the symbolic realm yes our esteemed midi the digital score that enables us to modify and allocate various instruments take a look for this we're going to use this notebook created by Google's m

agenta team it has two models one for solo piano and another for the tracks generated for the trio but prepare yourselves for something experimental a new style of the Jazz genre let's call it generative Jazz all right we have the notebook right here as usual we initiate by executing those code cells one by one and then it's time to load the model let's begin with the solo piano performances utilizing a model that transcribes solely piano including note velocities next we upload our original AI

generated audio which will then be converted into midi following this in our preferred digital audio workstation we select an instrument perhaps a refined piano and commence refining that midi it tends to emerge somewhat raw it necessitates a bit of finessing some effort are you ready to [Music] listen [Music] [Laughter] yes indeed I'm aware it's striking of course it doesn't match the level of what Bill produced but it's evident that there's an Essence a latent potential something profoundly or

iginal now let's see how the trio fares using the model that transcribes multiple simultaneous instruments albeit without capturing the velocities we'll download the mid file and begin the manipulation in the doll this phase promises to be highly avantgard exceptionally experimental as we're about to assign a variety of instruments let's have a listen [Music] yes I understand I know it's as if it hails from another world generative Jazz for both the ladies and the gentlemen a Transcendent experi

ence moving from the generative to the symbolic all through the power of artificial intelligence what a privilege it is to be alive in this era how fortunate we are to possess such tools that Propel our creativity to new heights and even Beyond I couldn't conclude without acknowledging the nobody's Collective the production of these videos entails extensive experimentation coding editing researching learning from errors and it simply wouldn't be feasible without the invaluable support of this Co

llective come join us you'll discover an abundance of tools to immerse yourself in the realm of generative AI including all the notebooks I utilize in the videos alongside the nobody's acad where explanatory videos await we also boast an incredibly engaging Discord Channel where we exchange ideas and creations with this I bid you ad du until we meet again friends