Onisawa Lab. Graduate School of System and Information Engineering, University of Tsukuba
although a composition system needs to reflect user’s individual
Abstract—This paper proposes a music/lyrics composing impressions, since the images to music or lyrics differ from person system consisting of two sections, a lyric composing section and a
to person, the existing systems do not consider user’s
music composing section, which reflects user's impressions of theme of songs to music/lyrics. Love and nature are considered as
The purpose of this study is to reflect user’s impression and to
theme in this paper. First of all, a user has a theme and image of
get the user’s satisfaction in composition of music/lyrics. Another
lyrics to compose. The lyric composing section presents initial
purpose is that the system supports user’s composition of
lyrics selected at random from database that is generated using
music/lyrics using user’s impression of music/lyrics even if a user
existent lyrics and Markov Chain. If presented lyrics do not fit
has little knowledge of music or lyrics.
user's image, a part of lyrics not fitting user's image is changed by some other lyrics. When satisfied four lines lyrics are obtained,
In this article, Chapter 2 shows the structure of a music/lyrics
the music composition section starts. This section composes music
composition system, Chapter 3 shows experiments using the
fitting lyrics generated by the lyric composing section with the
presented system and discusses experimental results, and
music composition system. The section presents combinations of
consideration, Chapter 4 shows the future work, and the final
four lines lyrics and 16 measures music. A subject evaluates each combination of lyrics and music whether they fit his/her image of a song. According to subject's evaluation music melody is changed by Genetic Algorithms and a part of lyrics are changed. These procedures are repeated until satisfied combination of lyrics and music melody is generated. In order to verify the validity of the A. OUTLINE of MUSIC/LYRICS COMPOSITION SYSTEM presented system, subject experiments are performed.
First of all, a user has theme of song for composition of a song
(music and lyrics), and keywords associated with a theme are
considered. The outline of Music/Lyrics Composition System is shown in Fig.1. This system consists of two sections, a lyric
OW,a lot of musical works in classical music, popular music,
composing section and a music composing section. Four lines
N odern music, screen music, computer music, and so on, are lyrics and a sixteen bars musical work is generated by this system.
heard at restaurants or shopping centers, and music is a part of
One-line lyrics correspond to four bars.
our daily lives. Especially, Japanese popular song or nursery rhyme
In the lyric composing section, lyrics are selected from
is very familiar with us. Incidentally, Jean-Jacques Rousseau
database constructed using Markov Chain [5]. When a user selects
(1976) observed, “There was a sound, the soul grasped for it, and
a theme, the system selects and shows to user the first candidate of
there it had a ringing word” in “Essay on the origin of lyrics from lyrics database at random. If presented lyrics do not fit
language”[1]. That is, music and words are inseparably related.
user’s image, a part of lyrics not fitting user’s image is changed by
Therefore, a song sometimes stirs a person’s heart than only words
some other lyrics. If satisfied four lines lyrics are obtained, the
or other music, which has only melodies. Moreover, a song has
power of expression. There are many studies of automatic
In the music composing section, music is generated with the
composition music and automatic composition lyrics in order to
music composition system [6], which uses Interactive Genetic
realize music information processing and intelligent information
Algorithms [7,8], a kind of genetic algorithms. In addition to
processing of human. For instance, “LYRICA”[2] composes lyrics
human evaluation and fitness functions, which evaluates whether
automatically along with existing lyrics, and “VOCALOID”[3] is
lyrics and melody’s rhythm fit each other. A user evaluates each
known as a singing software. There is also a study on ”Music
combination of lyrics and music whether they fit his/her image of a
Composition by Interaction between Human and Computer”[4].
There are two ways to compose music/lyrics. One way is
composing lyrics first, and the other is composing music first. However, human frequently composes music/lyrics while checking generated lyrics or music. It is important to adjust images of lyrics and the image of music. It is difficult to adjust their images, since lyrics and music are composed separately by them. Moreover,
P is probability of elements b following elements a , ∑P = .
n is the total number of morphemes, and m is the maximum
number of b following a . If the number of b is less than m,
all b have not elements. If b has no element for some i and
j , its probability is assumed to be 0. If b has some element for
j , b has the same element in some a .
An example of words sets generated by Markov Chain is
shown in Table1. Using the table, the following sentences are
Let the first element of lyrics be c . First, select an
element a at random. Here, a assumed to be selected and c
Fig.1: Outline of Music/Lyrics Composition System
is There. Element b following a is are or is. So, the next
b at random. Here, are is assumed to
1) STRUCTURE of LYRIC COMPOSING SECTION
be selected. Then, c is are. Next, select a of which element is
The structure of the lyric composing section is shown in
are. Here, a is are. Element
Fig.2.When a user selects a theme, the section selects the first
or blue. So, select elements again. By repeating this procedure,
candidates of four lines lyrics from database of lyrics at random and shows to user. If presented lyrics do not fit user’s image, a part
of lyrics not fitting user’s image is changed by some other lyrics.
This section has two methods to change lyrics. The one is to change
their considering lyrics context. The other is to choose lyrics at
Table1: Example of words set generated by Markov Chain
random. Furthermore, a user can also input lyrics composing by himself/herself.
Show Four Lyrics(including Keyword) to User
Fig.2: Structure of Lyric Composing Section
2) DATABASE of LYRIC COMPOSING SECTION
The lyric composing section uses words sets [9] generated by
using Markov Chain. The words sets are constructed by the
analysis of existent lyrics using Markov Chain. First of all, existent
lyrics are divided into morphemes by Morphological Analysis [11],
In this section, three to four thousand lyrics are obtained by
and are prepared the words sets {X shown as expression (1).
the analysis of existent lyrics using Markov Chain. However, since
these lyrics are obtained mechanically, although they are various
types of lyrics, they don’t necessarily reflect user’s impressions of
a theme. Therefore, keywords having relation to a theme are
considered in order to select lyrics reflecting user’s impressions of
a theme from 3 to 4 thousand lyrics. That is, lyrics including
2 K, n) in expression (1) consist of elements
keywords are selected from words sets obtained by Markov Chain.
b and probability P (i = ,.
Lyrics database is constructed by the collection of selected lyrics.
morphemes divided, elements b are morphemes related to a ,
In order to consider the relation between lyrics this section
also has database of lyrics considering connection of sentences as
shown in Table 2. Table 2 shows that a sentence in condition i is
presents a new melody fitting the number of words in new lyrics.
liable to connect the one in condition i + 1. The database is used
These procedures are repeated until the satisfied combination of
when a user wants to change lyrics only one line.
Table2: Database of lyrics considering connection of sentences
Fifty candidates are arranged in high order
1) STRUCTURE of MUSIC COMPOSING SECTION
The structure of the music composition section is shown in
Fig.3. In this section, a music composition system [6] is used,
which applies Interactive Genetic Algorithms. Human evaluation
and the fitness function based on music theory are used in
Interactive Genetic Algorithms. One melody with four measures is
The numbers of words is assumed to be in the range from 10
considered as one phrase corresponding to one line lyric.
to 25. Therefore, patterns of notes shown in Fig.5 are assumed to be
used in this range. That is, 16th notes or 32nd notes are not use.
This section generates melody lines to fit user’s image of a song by changing the order of notes at random.
Fig.3: Structure of Music Composing Section
In the application of genetic algorithms, one phrase
corresponds to one individual, i.e., one chromosome. In addition to
human evaluation and the fitness functions, which evaluates 3) FITTNESS
whether lyrics and melody’s rhythm fit each other. This kind of
In order to fit the melodies with lyrics, the difference between
evaluation is described later on. The music composition section
the number of notes and the number of words is evaluated. The
generates music by the following procedures. The section presents
fitness function is shown in expression (2). The fitness function
combinations of four lines lyrics and 16 measures music with top
value becomes low as the difference becomes large.
12 fitness evaluation values of the difference between the number
of notes and that of words to a user, where the first 4 bars melody
corresponds to the first one line lyrics, the next 4 bars to the second
line lyrics, the next 4 bars to the third line one and the last four bars
to the last line lyrics as shown in Fig.4. A user evaluates each
combination of lyrics and music whether it fits his/her image of a song. According to user’s evaluation, music melody is changed by Genetic Algorithms. If lyrics do not fit the changed melody from
M : The Number of Notes of Melodies
user’s image point of view, a user modifies the lyrics using the lyric
composing section. If the number of words in modified lyrics is different from that in old lyrics, the music composition section
In order to verify the validity of the presented system, subject
According to reference [8], the desirable number of search
generations is in 10 to 20 generations for user’s tiredness in Interactive Generic Algorithms, the experiment for one subject is finished at the 10th generation.
Subjects are twenty man/woman are all twenties. Nine
subjects of them are inexperienced in composing music/lyrics, three are inexperienced in composing lyrics, five are inexperienced in composing music, and three of whom are experienced in composing music/lyrics. Each subject has a theme, love or nature. When a theme is love, keywords are making acquaintance,separating, etc. When theme is nature, keywords are mountain, sea,
Fig.6: Interface of Lyric Composing Section
flower, etc. The keywords are decided by the questionnaire done
In the experiment subjects compose music/lyrics using
interfaces shown in Fig.6 and Fig.7. Fig.6 shows the interface of the composition lyrics section, and Fig.7 shows the interface of the composition music section. After composing music/lyrics, subjects answer the following questionnaires.
Questionnaire: a) Do you feel that the system helps you compose music/lyrics? b) Do you feel that the lyrics are poetic? c) Do you feel that the system helps you compose lyrics? d) Do you feel that the output lyrics fit your image? e) Do you feel that the system helps you compose melodies fitting
f) Do you feel that the music fits your image? Each subject answers questionnaires with 5-points scale as follows:
Fig.7: Interface of Music Composing Section
B. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS and CONSIDERATION
For questionnaire d), comparison experiments are conducted
between “database with keywords” and “database that without keywords”, in order to show that the usefulness of keywords for composition of music/lyrics reflecting user’s impression of a theme.
Fig.8: Example of Output Theme is “Love”
The result of Questionnaire c) is shown in Fig.11. The average
evaluation point of subjects is 4.5 in 5-points scale. Only a subject, L3, don’t feel that the system helps user compose lyrics. Her mother tongue is not Japanese. Since the keywords are in Japanese, differences of images to lyrics among Japanese and non-Japanese seems to have an influence on the result.
Fig.9: Result of Questionnaire a)
The analysis result of Questionnaire a) is shown in Fig.9. The
average evaluation point among all subjects is 4 in 5-points scale. It can be said almost all subjects feel that the system helps a user
Fig.12: Result of Questionnaire d)
It is found from the analysis result of Questionnaire a) that
this system can help user composing music/lyrics.
The analysis result of Questionnaire d) is shown in Fig.12.
The average point among subjects is 3.6 in 5-points scale at the use
of database with the keywords, and the average is 2.3 at the use of database without the keywords. According to t-test, there is significant difference between with keywords and without keywords at the significance level 1%.
Lyrics generated by the section having database with
keywords fit user’s image more than those by the section having database without keywords. Keywords fitting a theme of a song are important to generate lyrics fitting user’s image. However, some subjects give 2-points to the section having database with keywords. Therefore, other construction methods of database should be considered.
It is found from the results of Questionnaires b) to d) that this
section can help users compose lyrics reflecting user’s image.
Fig.10: Result of Questionnaire b)
The analysis result of Questionnaire b) is shown in Fig.10.
The average evaluation point among subjects is 3.8 in 5-points scale. Three subjects don’t feel that generated lyrics are poetic. User L1, one of them, has comment the generated lyrics is a little unnatural grammatically.
Fig.13: Result of Questionnaire e)
The analysis result of Questionnaire e) is shown in Fig.13.
The average among subjects is 3.8 in 5-points scale. Four subjects don’t feel that the system helps a user compose melodies fitting lyrics. User L8, one of them, has comment when good melodies are
Fig.11: Result of Questionnaire c)generated, I want to compose a part of music by myself in order to
This paper proposes a music/lyrics composing system with
user’s impression of a theme. The system consists of two sections, the lyrics composing section and the music composing section. The former section has lyrics database obtained by the analysis of existing lyrics using Markov Chain. This section composes lyrics reflecting user’s impression of a theme by the use of lyrics database and keywords. The latter section applies Interactive Genetic Algorithms in which the difference between the number of words and that of notes is evaluated by prepared fitness function and a user evaluates whether melodies and lyrics fit user’s image. In
order to verify the validity of the presented system, subject
Fig.14: Result of Questionnaire f)
experiments are performed. Each subject composes music/lyrics
having a theme, love or nature using the presented system. After
The analysis result of Questionnaire f) is shown in Fig.14. The
the composition of music/lyrics, each subject answers
average among subjects is 3.5 in 5-points scale. Four subjects don’t
questionnaires from the following points of view: Whether
feel that the generated music fits user’s image. User 5, one of them,
combinations of composed music/lyrics fit subject’s image of a
has comment it seems to be difficult to sing a song along the
song or not and whether each subject can compose music/lyrics
easily or not. The experimental results show that the presented
From the above results of Questionnaires e) and f), this system
can reflect user’s impression of melody, and can help user compose
There are following problems as future works;
reconsideration of the relation between melody and lyrics and the
use of associate words database and/or synonym database.
It is found from the results of Questionnaires a) to f) that this
system can compose music/lyrics fitting user’s image and that this
system can help inexperienced users compose music/lyrics.
From the experimental results and user’s comments, the
[1] Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Yoshihiko Kobayashi, “Essay on the origin of
following two points are considered as future works.
[2] Minako Yoshikawa, “Software Creation 2004”, 2004
(1)There are many comments such as this system often (sometimes)
[3] YAMAHA Co., “VOCALOID”,http://www.vocaloid.com/jp/index.html
composes lyrics that are hard to sing a song along generated
[4] Shigeru Imai, Toshiharu Nagao, “Automation Composition Using
melody. This is because the relation between melody and lyrics is
Genetic Algorithm”, Electronic telecommunication society technology
considered only by the difference between the number of words
[5] Masashi Kowada, “Markov Chain”, Hakujitsusha, 1973
and that of notes as shown in expression (1). The relation between
[6] M.Unehara, T.Onisawa, “Music Composition by Interaction between
melody and lyrics should be also considered from other points of
Human and Computer”, New Generation Computing vol.23, no.2,
view. For example, it is important to consider the rhythm of set of
words so that the present system can generate the melody fitting the
[7] Hitoshi Iba, Japanese Society for Artificial Intelligence, “Theory of
evolution calculation method”, Ohmsha, 2005.
[8] Hiroaki Kitano, “Genetic Algorithm 4”, Sangyotosho, 2000
(2) The present system greatly depends on the lyrics database
[9] Automatic Automatic generation of sentences with Markov chain,
obtained by the analysis of existing lyrics using Markov Chain.
http://kentarok.org/mt/2004/04/15/000330
Therefore, if the number of themes increases and various [10]
Dear nursery rhyme, singing, and nursery rhyme,
individual impressions should be considered, the system cannot
http://www.mahoroba.ne.jp/~gonbe007/hog/shouka/00_songs.html
Kenji Yoshimura, “Base of natural language processing”,
compose lyrics reflecting user’s image. It is necessary to use
associate words database and/or synonym database as well as the
[12] Yuu Kitagawa, “Handbook of Music Theory”, Rittor Music, 1999
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