A crowd gathered on the MIT Media Lab in September for a live performance by musician Jordan Rudess and two collaborators. One among them, violinist and vocalist Camilla Bäckman, has carried out with Rudess earlier than. The opposite — a synthetic intelligence mannequin informally dubbed the jam_bot, which Rudess developed with an MIT staff over the previous a number of months — was making its public debut as a piece in progress.
All through the present, Rudess and Bäckman exchanged the indicators and smiles of skilled musicians discovering a groove collectively. Rudess’ interactions with the jam_bot advised a distinct and unfamiliar sort of alternate. Throughout one duet impressed by Bach, Rudess alternated between taking part in a couple of measures and permitting the AI to proceed the music in an identical baroque model. Every time the mannequin took its flip, a spread of expressions moved throughout Rudess’ face: bemusement, focus, curiosity. On the finish of the piece, Rudess admitted to the viewers, “That could be a mixture of an entire lot of enjoyable and actually, actually difficult.”
Rudess is an acclaimed keyboardist — the most effective of all time, in keeping with one Music Radar journal ballot — identified for his work with the platinum-selling, Grammy-winning progressive metallic band Dream Theater, which embarks this fall on a fortieth anniversary tour. He’s additionally a solo artist whose newest album, “Permission to Fly,” was launched on Sept. 6; an educator who shares his abilities by means of detailed on-line tutorials; and the founding father of software program firm Wizdom Music. His work combines a rigorous classical basis (he started his piano research at The Juilliard College at age 9) with a genius for improvisation and an urge for food for experimentation.
Final spring, Rudess grew to become a visiting artist with the MIT Middle for Artwork, Science and Expertise (CAST), collaborating with the MIT Media Lab’s Responsive Environments analysis group on the creation of recent AI-powered music expertise. Rudess’ principal collaborators within the enterprise are Media Lab graduate college students Lancelot Blanchard, who researches musical functions of generative AI (knowledgeable by his personal research in classical piano), and Perry Naseck, an artist and engineer specializing in interactive, kinetic, light- and time-based media. Overseeing the undertaking is Professor Joseph Paradiso, head of the Responsive Environments group and a longtime Rudess fan. Paradiso arrived on the Media Lab in 1994 with a CV in physics and engineering and a sideline designing and constructing synthesizers to discover his avant-garde musical tastes. His group has a practice of investigating musical frontiers by means of novel person interfaces, sensor networks, and unconventional datasets.
The researchers got down to develop a machine studying mannequin channeling Rudess’ distinctive musical model and approach. In a paper printed on-line by MIT Press in September, co-authored with MIT music expertise professor Eran Egozy, they articulate their imaginative and prescient for what they name “symbiotic virtuosity:” for human and pc to duet in real-time, studying from every duet they carry out collectively, and making performance-worthy new music in entrance of a dwell viewers.
Rudess contributed the information on which Blanchard educated the AI mannequin. Rudess additionally offered steady testing and suggestions, whereas Naseck experimented with methods of visualizing the expertise for the viewers.
“Audiences are used to seeing lighting, graphics, and scenic parts at many concert events, so we wanted a platform to permit the AI to construct its personal relationship with the viewers,” Naseck says. In early demos, this took the type of a sculptural set up with illumination that shifted every time the AI modified chords. In the course of the live performance on Sept. 21, a grid of petal-shaped panels mounted behind Rudess got here to life by means of choreography based mostly on the exercise and future era of the AI mannequin.
“Should you see jazz musicians make eye contact and nod at one another, that offers anticipation to the viewers of what’s going to occur,” says Naseck. “The AI is successfully producing sheet music after which taking part in it. How can we present what’s coming subsequent and talk that?”
Naseck designed and programmed the construction from scratch on the Media Lab with help from Brian Mayton (mechanical design) and Carlo Mandolini (fabrication), drawing a few of its actions from an experimental machine studying mannequin developed by visiting pupil Madhav Lavakare that maps music to factors transferring in area. With the flexibility to spin and tilt its petals at speeds starting from refined to dramatic, the kinetic sculpture distinguished the AI’s contributions in the course of the live performance from these of the human performers, whereas conveying the emotion and power of its output: swaying gently when Rudess took the lead, for instance, or furling and unfurling like a blossom because the AI mannequin generated stately chords for an improvised adagio. The latter was considered one of Naseck’s favourite moments of the present.
“On the finish, Jordan and Camilla left the stage and allowed the AI to completely discover its personal route,” he recollects. “The sculpture made this second very highly effective — it allowed the stage to stay animated and intensified the grandiose nature of the chords the AI performed. The viewers was clearly captivated by this half, sitting on the edges of their seats.”
“The objective is to create a musical visible expertise,” says Rudess, “to point out what’s doable and to up the sport.”
Musical futures
As the place to begin for his mannequin, Blanchard used a music transformer, an open-source neural community structure developed by MIT Assistant Professor Anna Huang SM ’08, who joined the MIT college in September.
“Music transformers work in an identical method as massive language fashions,” Blanchard explains. “The identical method that ChatGPT would generate essentially the most possible subsequent phrase, the mannequin we’ve would predict essentially the most possible subsequent notes.”
Blanchard fine-tuned the mannequin utilizing Rudess’ personal taking part in of parts from bass strains to chords to melodies, variations of which Rudess recorded in his New York studio. Alongside the best way, Blanchard ensured the AI could be nimble sufficient to reply in real-time to Rudess’ improvisations.
“We reframed the undertaking,” says Blanchard, “by way of musical futures that had been hypothesized by the mannequin and that had been solely being realized in the mean time based mostly on what Jordan was deciding.”
As Rudess places it: “How can the AI reply — how can I’ve a dialogue with it? That’s the cutting-edge a part of what we’re doing.”
One other precedence emerged: “Within the area of generative AI and music, you hear about startups like Suno or Udio which can be in a position to generate music based mostly on textual content prompts. These are very fascinating, however they lack controllability,” says Blanchard. “It was necessary for Jordan to have the ability to anticipate what was going to occur. If he might see the AI was going to decide he didn’t need, he might restart the era or have a kill swap in order that he can take management once more.”
Along with giving Rudess a display screen previewing the musical selections of the mannequin, Blanchard constructed in several modalities the musician might activate as he performs — prompting the AI to generate chords or lead melodies, for instance, or initiating a call-and-response sample.
“Jordan is the mastermind of all the pieces that’s taking place,” he says.
What would Jordan do
Although the residency has wrapped up, the collaborators see many paths for persevering with the analysis. For instance, Naseck want to experiment with extra methods Rudess might work together instantly along with his set up, by means of options like capacitive sensing. “We hope sooner or later we’ll be capable of work with extra of his refined motions and posture,” Naseck says.
Whereas the MIT collaboration targeted on how Rudess can use the instrument to enhance his personal performances, it’s straightforward to think about different functions. Paradiso recollects an early encounter with the tech: “I performed a chord sequence, and Jordan’s mannequin was producing the leads. It was like having a musical ‘bee’ of Jordan Rudess buzzing across the melodic basis I used to be laying down, doing one thing like Jordan would do, however topic to the straightforward development I used to be taking part in,” he recollects, his face echoing the delight he felt on the time. “You are going to see AI plugins to your favourite musician you could carry into your personal compositions, with some knobs that allow you to management the particulars,” he posits. “It’s that sort of world we’re opening up with this.”
Rudess can be eager to discover instructional makes use of. As a result of the samples he recorded to coach the mannequin had been much like ear-training workouts he’s used with college students, he thinks the mannequin itself might sometime be used for instructing. “This work has legs past simply leisure worth,” he says.
The foray into synthetic intelligence is a pure development for Rudess’ curiosity in music expertise. “This is the following step,” he believes. When he discusses the work with fellow musicians, nevertheless, his enthusiasm for AI typically meets with resistance. “I can have sympathy or compassion for a musician who feels threatened, I completely get that,” he permits. “However my mission is to be one of many individuals who strikes this expertise towards optimistic issues.”
“On the Media Lab, it’s so necessary to consider how AI and people come collectively for the advantage of all,” says Paradiso. “How is AI going to carry us all up? Ideally it should do what so many applied sciences have performed — carry us into one other vista the place we’re extra enabled.”
“Jordan is forward of the pack,” Paradiso provides. “As soon as it’s established with him, individuals will comply with.”
Jamming with MIT
The Media Lab first landed on Rudess’ radar earlier than his residency as a result of he wished to check out the Knitted Keyboard created by one other member of Responsive Environments, textile researcher Irmandy Wickasono PhD ’24. From that second on, “It has been a discovery for me, studying concerning the cool issues which can be occurring at MIT within the music world,” Rudess says.
Throughout two visits to Cambridge final spring (assisted by his spouse, theater and music producer Danielle Rudess), Rudess reviewed remaining tasks in Paradiso’s course on digital music controllers, the syllabus for which included movies of his personal previous performances. He introduced a brand new gesture-driven synthesizer referred to as Osmose to a category on interactive music programs taught by Egozy, whose credit embody the co-creation of the online game “Guitar Hero.” Rudess additionally offered recommendations on improvisation to a composition class; performed GeoShred, a touchscreen musical instrument he co-created with Stanford College researchers, with pupil musicians within the MIT Laptop computer Ensemble and Arts Students program; and skilled immersive audio within the MIT Spatial Sound Lab. Throughout his most up-to-date journey to campus in September, he taught a masterclass for pianists in MIT’s Emerson/Harris Program, which supplies a complete of 67 students and fellows with help for conservatory-level musical instruction.
“I get a sort of rush at any time when I come to the college,” Rudess says. “I really feel the sense that, wow, all of my musical concepts and inspiration and pursuits have come collectively on this actually cool method.”
