How I composed the song

How I composed the song

First of all, you have to feed the machine with scores that constitute “inspiration”. All fantasies are possible: one can imagine stylistic mixtures or on the contrary, seek to create the ideal corpus in a particular style or composer. This first step influences the way I listen to the generated melodies: I try to recognize the influences I fed the machine with.

You’ll notice that the rising melody at 0:18 is very typical: it is accompanied by a harmonic descent at 0:22. You can hear this type of harmonic movement in Yesterday for example, as explained in this TEDx François Pachet who led the Flow Machines project.

I added by hand a kind of post-chorus that came very naturally, with bells sounds (like in No Milk Today). I quickly recorded a demo in false English with many choirs. François Pachet went into the studio to listen. He suggested additional harmonies on the choirs and a structure that includes two different choruses: one with its variation and the other without.