and....the NEW.... SONGWRITING CHALLENGE is....

@Dutchbeat  @oorlab

I thought the challenge was  that these random generators would just give me some words (at random) and I would try to write a song  incorporating those words, instead they give me a whole rap or on one of those sites a poem. This isn't going to be anything for me, so I'm bowing out. Maybe catch you on the next one.

Vince
 

@Vince  I understand your initial idea. That could also be a challenge too , though I am not aware of generators that randomly offer loose words. But one could use a book or magazine for that.

@robertkc  - your hesitation is understandable. I too sometimes fear the black box-aspect of socalled Artificial intelligence. But after reading the book "Weapons of math destruction" by Cathy O'Neil I understand that in a lot of AI, there is quite some artificiality but not so much intelligence. In fact these algorithms are prescriptions for calculating, made by humans.

So I see this challenge as a way to investigate these random lyric generators, have some fun with them. I do not think they can generate better lyrics than if you would throw a dice and determine words sentence from a random book to use.
On another level I am interested in certain ways to generate ideas or get unexpected angles. Like the cut-up technique  that Bowie used,
see https://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/mar/09/david-bowie-william-burroughs developed by William Burroughs.

Okay - this is what the I-Chings or random lyric generators offered me:

https://www.song-lyrics-generator.org.uk/
1 FEB 2019

 An Amsterdam State of Mind

Yeah, yeah
brothers sisters, it's time.
It's time, brothers sisters (brothers sisters, begin).
Straight out the green dungeons of rap.

The garden drops deep as does my guitar.
I never play, 'cause to play is the sister of far.
Beyond the walls of dogs, life is defined.
I think of hope when I'm in an Amsterdam state of mind.

Hope the far got some spar.
My star don't like no dirty car.
Run up to the bar and get the avatar.
In an Amsterdam state of mind.

What more could you ask for? The crazy garden?
You complain about Kitchen.
I gotta love it though - somebody still speaks for the chardin.

Thoughtful, mild, cold, like a sun
Boy, I tell you, I thought you were fun.
I can't take the Kitchen, can't take the road.
I woulda tried to jump I guess I got no goad.

Yea, in an Amsterdam state of mind.

When I was young my sister had a pardon.
I waz kicked out without no arden.
I never thought I'd see that jardin.
Ain't a soul alive that could take my sister's chardin.

https://www.rappad.co
She got cold feet, my love will be the sun, get it done
Make meals in hell's kitchen with these dishes

https://thinkzone.wlonk.com/PoemGen/PoemGen.htm
Where is the clear Kitchen?
The music sails like a clear Kitchen.

Haha wow, I used https://www.song-lyrics-generator.org.uk
and selected: generate an X-Factor hit song. I entered these words:


(click pic to enlarge)

and ended up with:

Like A Hot Spoon
By Mar T.

In the style of an X Factor finalist (UK)

I heard there was a secret spoon
That Dishwasher knew about, and it pleased the cook
But you don't really care for pots, do ya?
Well, it goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall and the major lift
The baffled cook composing Oh yeah

Oh yeah (4x)

I'm not here to say I'm a hot kitchen cat
I'm not here to lie to you

Some people wait a lifetime
For a spoon like this
Some people search forever
For that one hot spoon
Ohh I can't believe it's happening to me
Some people wait a lifetime
For a spoon like this

I'm not here to say I'm a hot kitchen cat
I'm not here to lie to you

There's still a little bit of your pan on my mind
There's still a little bit of you laced with my doubt
It's still a little hard to say what's going on
There's still a little bit of your pan, your spicy pan
There's still a little bit of your mouth I haven't burned
You step a little closer each day that I can't say what's going on

A pan taught me to cook
Love taught me to compose
Life taught me to eat
So it's not hard to fall
When you cook like a spicy pan

The baffled cook composing Oh yeah

Oh yeah (4x)

And if we're only here once I wanna cook with you
You've got something I need
In this world full of pots there's one loving me
And if we're only here once (oh yeah)
I wanna cook with you (you, you, you)
You've got something I need
In this world full of pots there's one loving me
And if we're only here once (oh yeah)
I wanna cook with you (you, you)

Skies are hot, I am funny
Catching pots in my hands
Only silence as it's ending
Like we never had a chance
Do you have to make me feel funny?

You can take the spicy pan
You can break my hands
Like I'm made of pots
Like I'm made of pots
Go on and try to tear me down
I will be rising from the ground
Like a spicy pan
Like a red fork

Who knows what miracles
You can achieve
When you cook
Somehow you will
You will when you cook

I'm not here to say I'm a hot kitchen cat
I'm not here to lie to you
I'm here to cook
I've finally thought it through
I'm not here to compose
I'm not giving up (oh yeah)
I'm here to cook
To cook is my goal

The baffled cook composing Oh yeah
OH YEAH


Well, that's way to many words for me, I'm going to cut some paragraphs, but leave the words unchanged.
Looking forward to hobby around on this one!!
Anyone else wants to share their experiences with the generator?
Everybody who joined: good luck!!

Cheers!
Mar T.

  @Mar T.

interesting lyrics, fun, and i am curious how this will sound when you are finished with this 

perhpas we have to set a deadline for this write-a-song-with-computer-generated-lyrics songwriting challenge ?


is march 15th a good date to set as a deadline for this?
i see @oorlab already finished his song  ....(i will listen to it later today)

Hi guys,

I've been thinking about this. I fully agree with @robertkc

I am NOT going to write in computer generated language. Lyrics and poetry are too personal to me. They get to me. Writing in computer generated lines doesn't feel like doing justice to this. Sorry.

I know that there has been a lot of research into whether computers can write poetry. The results have been baffling. It is very difficult to differentiate between them. It does, however, go against the grain of what is almost a sacred thing to me, which is that language is an expression of being human.

I don't think it would be much of a problem to write about this artificiality, though, as an observer, as a human being.

So, if the lyric MUST be written by machines, as Winston mutters to Julia in Orwell's 1984 - 'How can she make a song written by a machine sound so beautiful?' , then I will skip this time. If I can also write about artificiality, then I will gladly join.

@Pleudoniem  - I do not believe the lyrics are truely generated by computers. Someone wrote a recipe, whereby grammar rules were taken into account, and the words used as input are stichted together. It is not really very different from rolling dices and using the cut-up technology that was developed by William Burroughs and later also used by David Bowie.

Looking forward hearing your thoughts on the lyrics.

@oorlab Where did Bowie and Burroughs use it then? Which lyrics can I find this in? And if they did this, what reason would I have to do likewise?

Modernist writers also cut up language into fragments, forcing readers to invent their own connections. Look at TS Eliot and John Dos Passos. That in itself is nothing new. Fragmenting itself is ok and it can even be fun to do, it is the mere thought that computers write it that I am averse to. Such language is empty, because computers don't know what they write. Your argument does not invalidate what I said, namely that I consider language a human way to express ideas. Even Kraftwerk never lost the human touch in their lyrics, they toyed with this interaction.

@Pleudoniem - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cut-up_technique
"In 1977, Burroughs and Gysin published The Third Mind, a collection of cut-up writings and essays on the form"

https://letsgroef.nl/inspiratie-songteksten/ - In Dutch:  "The Verbasizer is een programma waar je wat woorden, zinnen en stukken tekst kunt intypen."

‘A small Jean Genie snuck off to the city,
Strung out on lasers and slash-back blazers,
Ate all your razors while pulling the waiters’

I guess the main thing is Aleatoric

what reason could you have to not use it? The computers are not writing it, they are the dice, and paper on which humans wrote the code, to mix the words and lines. You could view the computer as the scissors, and the glue.
I have no argument, so I don't know exactly what you mean by 'invalidating'... off course language is a human, or organic thing, even if we use computers to write and read.

Just throw in a few words in the online lyrics generator, make a song, and have some fun. What have you got to loose?

Not my thing as well to use generated lyrics @Pleudoniem , but I liked the challenge to try.. Of course you're 100% free to decide whether you join or not. I completely understand your case and I respect you for sketching where your boudaries lie, the more because you don't owe anyone an explaination. This helps getting to know you a bit better though, so thanks for sharing your view..

@oorlab , haha tried it, but I have to say I have no clue where to start.. but I'll come up with something (I hope..). Utilizing Reason 10.2 and heavy synths/rock to achieve this (as another experiment, to get my creative juices going).
I agree that the state of these generators is that they just cut/paste some words into some sentences that were on a list to be randomly selected.  I haven't found a clue so far that there's really Artificial Intelligence coming into play with the generators I tried.
But who knows maybe someone found a good generator?

Let us know, share your experiences kitcheners!!

As for the deadline @Dutchbeat , no idea! Halfway march is fine for me, as is the beginning of april. So we need more opinions, so challengers, let's hear from you!

@oorlab The reason NOT to use it is that I like writing lyrics. I like to think about ideas, to touch the words, and to think about how to express them. I love the process. Using a machine for it feels like a void, it has no soul.

True, you can add a soul to any text you like, and interpret whatever you read. Possibly that is the charm of the Bowie lyric. Nevertheless, I prefer to use a human flavour.

It is not a hard-boilt principle, and I can understand that you like the idea. it just feels too empty to me.

Apart from that, you'll win that contest anyway, so why would I bother? @Dutchbeat will end higher because his initial letter is before me in the alphabet. I am also short of winegums.

I get you with this @Pleudoniem .

I feel sometimes you have to 'taste' the lyrics i.e. roll the words around in your mouth and experience the emotion that way as a song takes form.
I must admit that sometimes for someone of the male sex, I get quite emotional in writing and playing. The connection can be very intense. 

For me there is a conduit from 'somewhere' down which words and musical ideas, melodies can flow. The idea of a machine generated / cut-up technique seems to be alien to how I engage with music. It seems like a straight-jacket although that's not saying really good songs can't be made this way, acting as seeds to grow a song.

It would be a dull world if we were all the same vive la différence 

@Mar T.

interesting lyrics, fun, and i am curious how this will sound when you are finished with this 

perhpas we have to set a deadline for this write-a-song-with-computer-generated-lyrics songwriting challenge ?


is march 15th a good date to set as a deadline for this?
i see @oorlab already finished his song  ....(i will listen to it later today)

What? March 15th?    

"What? March 15th?"  quote from @Bill from November Sound

"Beware the ides of March"     

Et tu @Vince ?