More experiments with AI: choral music

Disclaimer for language teachers:  As you may have gathered from the title, this post isn't about languages, but it does include another language and the skills that I have picked up by using AI in my language work!

I have spent over thirty years being a language teacher, and over fifteen years writing about it on this blog.  During all of that time I have also been a choral singer and director.  I started choral singing in middle school (age about 9), continued at secondary school and the local youth choir, and then at university where I began conducting for the first time.  Since 1996 I have been a member of a local mixed voice choir (it was a condition of my first teaching job, but that's another story!)  I took over as conductor after our leader sadly passed away in 2020.  I'm always looking for new pieces to sing, and over the Christmas holidays undertook an experiment to create a new choral piece.

I decided (Why? asked one of my choir!) that I wanted the words to be in Latin.  Latin A level never leaves you!   I asked ChatGPT to create "a short 4 line poem in Latin about the joys of singing".  Its first attempt was a bit prolix so I asked it to simplify it.  Then it turned out that a four-line poem gets very repetitive in one piece of music, so I asked it to create a second verse.  Here is the whole thing:

Canto laetus sum
Vox mea clara est
Cantare amo
Cor gaudet semper

Canto cum amicis
Ridemus simul
Vox fortis, cor magnum
Gaudium manet

(I sing and I am happy
My voice is clear
I love to sing
My heart always rejoices

I sing with friends
We laugh together
Strong voice, big heart
Joy remains)

I changed the original parva (small) to fortis (strong).  Otherwise the words are exactly as ChatGPT created them.

Next I pasted these lyrics into Suno.com.  (Read more about my work using Suno here and here.)  My first prompt was "a capella, 4 part harmony".  This just gave me results that had clearly been scraped from the work of the vocal group Pentatonix.  I tried some other prompts, adding the adjectives happy and joyful, and then "in the style of a folk song", "in the style of a spiritual" and "in the style of Palestrina" among others.  Finally, after seventy-two iterations (yes - 72!) it finally gave me a song that I thought I could work with.

I downloaded the mp3 from Suno and transcribed the soprano (melody) and bass lines.  I then ran it through a free mp3->pdf transcriber, which didn't do a very good job but was enough to tell me the keys and possible chords quicker than listening and transcribing would.

The final step was to add in the alto and tenor lines.  I edited it a little to prevent it from being quite so repetitive, and added an ending phrase.

I introduced it to the choir last night, and they seem to like it!

So would I do it again?  Probably yes.  I have a new piece created especially for my choir, and it didn't actually take that long to get from the lyrics stage to the full score stage.  I used AI in the initial creation stage, but it still needed real person input to get to the finished piece.  It would doubtless have taken longer to start the piece completely from scratch.  However there is always the ethical and copyright concern of where the AIs have got the content from.

Language Policy

 

You probably remember the announcement from the DfE earlier this summer that money is being made available for the teaching of Latin in secondary schools.  

I said at the time that, while I am a big fan of Latin having studied it to A level and used it in my M.Phil. thesis, I think the proposed £4million being set aside for secondary Latin could be much better used for putting into practice the recommendations of the White Paper, and ensuring that all children in primary schools receive a quality languages education.  I wrote to the DfE saying as much on 31st July:

"Having studied Latin to A level, I am pleased to see the plans to ensure that Latin is taught in KS3 and KS4 in the state sector. However this is another project aimed at the secondary phase. They have the Mandarin project, NCELP and now this Latin project. I have been a teacher and independent consultant of KS2 Languages for 12 years. Since the first injection of money for special projects shortly after statutory languages in KS2 were introduced, there has been no funding or support for primary languages forthcoming. Are you able to assure me that you are taking on board the recommendations of the White Paper "Primary Languages Policy in England: the way forward" which was published by the Research in Primary Languages Network (RiPL) in March 2019, and allocating to KS2 language teaching some funding in order to ensure that all KS2 children receive a quality languages education?"

Today (almost a month later) I received a reply:

"Thank you for your email of the 31 July sharing your thoughts on the launch of the Latin Excellence Programme.

You are correct that the NCELP hubs, the Mandarin Excellence Programme and the intended Latin Excellence Programme are all aimed at the secondary phase of languages education.
We are aware of the RiPL White Paper and its recommendations for the Department for Education, as well as the distinct challenges which primary schools face when teaching languages.

Currently the Department’s priority is on funding of programmes which focus on secondary school teaching of languages, with the aim of increasing GCSE uptake. This links to the government’s English Baccalaureate ambition and, in the case of the NCELP programme, follows up on the 2016 Teaching Schools Council’s MFL Pedagogy Review which encourages secondary school teachers to build on pupils’ language knowledge from primary school.

The Department continues to review all existing and intended programmes, as well as recommendations from the most recent research, in allocating funding to priority areas.
Thank you for writing to the Department on this important matter."

So good news for secondary schools, not so much for primary languages.

My Library

A couple of weeks ago Nathalie Paris told me about the My Library app.  She, in turn, had been told about it by Sylvie Doyle.  Now, I have a lot of books that I use both in my teaching and to inform my teaching.  I have blogged about a lot of them on here before, but I've never made an attempt to record anywhere the books that I have.  This app seemed to be a way of doing that, and a way of sharing my library afterwards.

The My Library app enables you to build up a list of your books quickly and easily.  You scan the barcode on the book, which records the ISBN number and locates the book.  Then you can add a Series (I've used this to enter the language the book is in or its theme, e.g. Pedagogy) and any number of categories.  For example, when scanning one of my copies of the Hungry Caterpillar, I entered it into the French series and gave it the categories Numbers, Food, Fruit and Days of the Week:

Now that I have all 422 of my books in my library on the app, I can use the search to find certain themes.  For example, let's say I want to find other books that I can use for Days of the Week, all I need to do is to select it in the search.  I tap on "All categories" first:

And then select the category that I'm looking for:

And here are all my books that have something to do with Days of the Week:

Doing this has highlighted that I have a lot of books about animals, food and colours, but very few or none about other topic areas that I teach.

I scanned all my books in with my phone, and it took several sessions over two weeks.  I've been able to export the library and its pictures so that I now have a copy on my tablet as well.  It's not possible to share the list with someone else without it overwriting all their books.  However, you can export your library as an Excel spreadsheet, which is easy to share and to sort.  The only slight downside of this is that all the categories end up in the same column and you can't use them to sort the books.  You can, though, highlight categories using the "Find" function.

I've uploaded my Excel library to Google Drive, and you can browse it here.

In a geekie way I've enjoyed reacquainting myself with all my books and recording what exactly I have!

Go Latino!

A whole day all about languages, a whole day about languages descended from Latin.  This was Go Latino!, a day conference run by ALL (NE) yesterday.

I did Latin O'level back in the day, followed by A'level two years later.  Then some five years after that I needed to call on it again while researching for my M.Phil, as my poem was "borrowed" from one in Maccheronic Latin and called on many of the classical authors.  (Nearly 20 years later, it still bothers me that I never succeeded in tracking down the reference to "Venus y sus ninfas".)

In my Spanish Key Stage 2 scheme of work I have included a bit of Latin, namely in days of the week and parts of the body, inspired by the children's questions.  I'd like to weave in some more (and a bit of Arabic if possible!) and was after some information about how it is taught these days and what resources are available.

The day started with some thought-provoking words from Jim McElwee.  We considered the words of Comenius's Magna Didactica, in which he speaks about effective teaching as well as language teaching.  Some of Jim's points for your consideration:

• Do we draw attention to cognates or take them for granted?  Are they obvious to all learners?
• Do we notice things we aren't looking for?  Children often come up with things we aren't expecting, while the teacher tends to have a certain answer in mind.
• Do we teach about language or help learners to acquire the language?  For example, a young learner might be able to use a present subjunctive clause without knowing or understanding exactly how it works.

Sue Balmer spoke about the Latin teaching that she has been doing at Gosforth Academy.  She and others have found Latin to be a boy-friendly subject, due to its logical and problem-solving nature.  Sue uses the Cambridge Latin Course, which is the course that I learned from at school.  The course has been updated has new resources to go with it.  The Cambridge Latin Online Project was launched in 1999.  Another story-based course is Ecce Romani.  Both are rich in language and culture.  Sue recommends the Minimus series for primary-age learners.  Minimus is particularly apt for north-east learners as Minimus and the other characters are from Vindolanda on Hadrian's Wall, and  he is even on Twitter.

Latin has some advantages over modern languages.  

• Non-specialist teachers, and students, will not be as worried about the pronunciation.  
• Latin in Key Stage 2 would solve Transition dilemmas
• It provides enormous cultural knowledge and there are huge benefits for Literacy and other areas of the curriculum.

Some useful links:

• The document Latin for Language Learners: Opening opportunities for primary pupils promotes and justifies the teaching of Latin.
• TuTubusLatinus - a Latin-based YouTube channel
• Friends of Classics website.  Grants are available to get Latin started in your school

After finding out about using short films in the classroom (Filminute.com looks like an excellent site and I recommend Chop Chop), dabbling in some Portuguese language and culture and then a quick lunch, it was time to learn about Web 2.0 tools with Joe Dale.  There are some useful links posted on the Todaysmeet.com page for the event, which you will be able to view for the next 29 days!

Many thanks to Claire Dodds and her team for organising such a good day.