Google’s doodle uses Artificial intelligence to honor Bach

Google’s doodle uses Artificial intelligence to honor Bach

By

Sana Hassan

Google’s home page presents itself in new ways every day. The most frequently used search engines add little modifications and changes to the actual logo. These changes are broadly called as the Google doodles. With the context of celebrations of each day be it women’s day, cancer awareness or anniversaries Google’s logo becomes interactive in a certain day. The thing different and innovative about this doodle was the use of artificial intelligence.

Bach- the composer

On 21 March 2019 Google celebrated Johann Sebastian Bach, German composer, and musician of the Baroque time, famous for its instrumental compositions. The logo changed into a cute interactive doodle of Bach playing the piano. On a single click, it starts communicating with you through pop up messages. Bach tells a little about himself, plays his melody and invites you to make your own music and harmonize it in Bach’s style.

Where does Artificial Intelligence come in?

The use of artificial intelligence comes at the point of harmonizing. At the back end, several of Bach’s compositions were played beforehand. By giving the machine several examples of the composition the artificial intelligence was able to find the similarities that contributed towards his styles. By this machine
learning the harmonization of any kind of notes into Bach’s style was easily done. This type of learning involves several examples not just a single comparison to the standard.

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Companies involved

It was created by Google’s Magenta and PAIR teams, the Doodle. Magenta was responsible for the machine learning aspect of the project while PAIR created the ability to use it in the web browser. The machine-learning model, called Coconet, analyzed 306 of Bach’s original chorale harmonization so it was able to create a harmonized tune with the user’s notes.

Artificial Intelligence in Music-A new debate

Although Google is not the pioneer in using such technology in music, the innovative idea has given birth to a new heated debate. The ways in which this technology can be utilized in the music industry is under discussion. Paths and ways that can be established for this utilization are also a consideration.