Winner of the IDEX UCA Jedi IDEX DeepTech Startup call for projects, the MusicIA project is working on the realization of a music intelligence software solution. This is a joint project between the Albigensian start-up AIbstract, which specializes in the application of artificial intelligence technologies to music creation, and the Centre Transdisciplinaire d’Épistémologie de la Littérature et des arts vivants (CTEL) at the Université Côte d’Azur.
Cyril Délécraz, a former doctoral student at the CTEL who defended his thesis in music under the direction of Jean-François Trubert, and now Musical Director of AIbstract, is at the origin of the relationship between the two partners.
“We have a team of musicologists at the CTEL who work on the process of musical creation; many articles have been published by our team on the genesis of musical processes,” explains Jean-François Trubert, University Professor of Musicology at the CTEL.
The MusicIA project makes it possible to put AI technology at the service of music by developing software offering the services of a virtual singer-songwriter capable of creating and broadcasting personalized music in real time.
“Our technology is aimed at 4 different audiences”, explains Jason Valax, President, CEO of AIbstract, “First of all the general public for mainly recreational uses consisting in enriching musically various everyday activities and personal content. Also companies, to allow them to develop an autonomous control of the musical dimension of their brand identity and the experiences they offer to their own audiences, for example by generating background music in a business that would evolve according to the time of day, the weather or a promotion to be highlighted. »
AIbstract is also intended for musicians to accompany them at every stage of their practice, in particular thanks to creative features that help them to complete their creations or to arrange them in another musical register. Content creators will also be able to use the solution to enrich their productions.
“We are looking to offer a new gesture of appropriation of music to as many people as possible by making the vector of personal musical expression accessible,” summarizes Jason Valax.
An ambitious project in AI and musicology
The partnership between the CTEL and AIbstract makes it possible to set up this ambitious project both on the AI side and on the musicology side.
“The collaboration with the CTEL allows a start-up like AIbstract to strengthen its skills, says the CEO, because to advance on our modeling of the music creation process, we need people skilled in musicology, able to seek large bodies of knowledge and retain what needs to be implemented in AI. »
Cyril Délécraz worked on this model. Thanks to his broad musical culture and his thesis defended under the direction of Jean-François Trubert at the CTEL, he has made it possible to make a state of the art in 2019:
“I’m working on a gigantic tree structure of the theoretical aspects of music in order to be able to create a prototype in the short term,” explains Cyril. He is working in collaboration with Maxime Cottin, currently a post-doctoral student at the CTEL, who is receiving funding from the IDEX UCA Jedi to work on the study of current music in order to highlight several key elements of current Western musical composition, such as harmonic and melodic progressions.
A project supported by IDEX UCA Jedi
“When Jason Valax contacted the IDEX UCA JEDI Innovation team in April 2020 to explain the problems of his start-up AIbstract and his interest in a potential collaboration with Université Côte d’Azur in the field of music creation, we spoke to Jean-François Trubert who immediately expressed his interest,” explains Marc Barret, Operational Director of Innovation.
The MusicIA project was thus drafted and submitted and accepted in June 2020 as part of the IDEX UCA JEDI DeepTech Startup Call for Projects and the partnership contract signed in November 2020.
The complementarity of musicology and artificial intelligence, as well as the clarity of the business project presented were important elements in IDEX’s decision to support this interdisciplinary project. A connection with the 3IA Côte d’Azur is envisaged in the medium term to reinforce AIbstract’s AI technology through collaborations with the 3IA’s Artificial Intelligence research teams.
“IDEX UCAJEDI is particularly proud to support this corporate project at the interface of artistic creation and artificial intelligence, which can provide innovative solutions provided they are properly assembled, which is what we are convinced of here,” concludes Marc Barret.
Discover other research projects conducted at the University Côte d’Azur on its website.
Translated from Focus sur le projet MusicIA d’AIbstract et du CTEL de l’Université Côte d’Azur
