I Can't Play The Piano... So I'll Just Sing

People often shy away from the idea of playing the piano, the guitar, or some other musical instrument. The idea of music lessons gives them the willies. They think it's too hard, or they have no talent. And they spend the rest of their lives deprived of the basic human desire to express music.

How about singing, then? Most people can sing, right? Even "bad" singing is still categorized as singing! So let's make this bold postulation: there's no need for anyone to be without a means of musical expression... the human voice is a musical instrument!

Otto Jesperson, the renowned language professor, said, "Men sang out their feelings long before they were able to speak their thoughts." Proof of the earliest attempts at singing is, of course, hard to find. No one thought to write things down as the earth made its first few revolutions around the sun. And vocal chords, having no bones in their structure, have left no archeological records. So historians, in the absence of anyting contradictory, have presumed that the voice is the original musical instrument. A reasonable presumption until more evidence comes to light.

A human culture has yet to be found that does not have singing at its heart. Music seems to be an intrinsic part of who we are and singing seems to be its most ready form of expression. In the great land Down Under, there is a group that is aggressively promoting singing as a natural, even necessary, social activity. The group, Sing Australia, is out to prove that singing ("good" singing not a prerequisite) can be a pathway to a richer life experience. It's a project worth watching. Sing Australia's website can be found here: http://www.singaustralia.com.au/default.asp

Anyway, it's not likely anyone will argue that singing is a bad idea. The only folks likely to protest against singing are from the "I can't hold a tune in a bucket!" camp. And there's no real substance for that argument. In addition to all the wonderful voice teachers, there's a ton of stuff out there in our internet world to help with the problem of tonal deficiencies. A long list of "Learn to Sing" software programs is as close as the nearest Google search window. I may review some of those programs in later posts.

This time around I want to draw attention to a product from Microsoft. Not usually a participant in the performing arts, Microsoft has developed an intriguing software program for musicians (or would-be musicians) at all levels of expertise. Entitled Songsmith, the program gathers input from a person singing into a microphone, then produces a multi-instrument accompaniment based on the singer's input.

The value of this software to a performing musician is probably limited. It could be useful to someone like a songwriter, perhaps, as an idea-development tool. The biggest value I see is that it allows people with no musical expertise to get a taste of the music making experience. And that just might be the catalyst that encourages more people to get into music making for real.

Watch this video as Dan Morris from Microsoft Research explains the program in detail.

I downloaded a copy for myself a few days ago and I've enjoyed every minute spent playing with it. Admittedly, it has a few musical weaknesses. For instance, if the singer offers up something other than exact notes, the program has problems recognizing a key signature and producing chords relative to that key. But such weaknesses are far outweighed by the raw fact that anyone with the barest minimum of know-how can create a song in just a few minutes.

Here is the link to the Songsmith site. A free trial copy of the software is available there.

http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/projects/songsmith/index.html