Can ChatGPT write music?

It's a kind of magic, but can this AI tech really write music?

Can ChatGPT write music?

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ChatGPT is an auto-generative chatbot system that can output a lot of different things, and be used for specific human-facing tools. This includes chatbots for customer care or any area of service where more natural-feeling chatbots will be of benefit. But, given it can write a lot of different types of text, can ChatGPT write music? After all, if ChatGPT can write a business plan and code, it seems as though you could throw pretty much anything at it. That’s not exactly the case, and it’s not always 100% perfect in producing factual text. But the melodic question remains.

And the answer to the query of the model’s writing music capability is it can’t do it in any real sense. But that doesn’t mean it can’t help suggest chords and lyrics for anyone wanting some inspiration in getting out of a musical funk.

ChatGPT Music analyses

When we asked ChatGPT if it could write music, this was its response:

“As a language model, I can generate lyrics and even suggest chord progressions and melodies that could be used to write a song, but I don’t have the capability to physically create music.

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“However, my responses are based on the patterns in the texts I was trained on, so if you have a specific idea or prompt in mind, I’d be happy to assist you in generating songwriting content!”

We followed up with the question: ChatGPT can you recommend chords for a viral melodic metal song? And its reply to this query was:

“Sure! Here are some chord progressions that are commonly used in melodic metal songs:

  1. Em – C – G – D
  2. A – E – F#m – D
  3. D – A – Bm – G
  4. G – D – Em – C
  5. Bm – G – A – D

“You can experiment with these chord progressions and see if they fit with your melody. Keep in mind that there are no strict rules when it comes to chord progressions and you can always try different combinations to see what sounds best for your song.”

Beyond this, we asked ChatGPT if it could suggest lyrics for the chords it recommended, and it did do that. It, rather smartly, provided two verses, a bridge, and a chorus.

Is there an AI that can make music?

Yes, there are several AI platforms that can make music. A popular example is Google’s Magenta. It is an open-source research project focused on creating art and music using machine learning.

Additionally, there is another system called AIVA which is an AI music composer. But that’s not all, these are just the most popular platforms out there! You’ll be able to find loads more AI music generators on the web too.

Can GPT 4 generate music?

Yes, it is possible that GPT-4 can generate music. But, it would require some specialized training on music-related tasks and a large set of musical data. While GPT-4 is capable of generating some basic musical patterns and lyrics, if you are looking for more complex compositions, GPT-4 is not the model for you.

Can GPT-4 generate sound?

Unfortunately, GPT-4 cannot generate sound. OpenAI’s multimodal model can only understand image and text inputs to generate a text response in natural language.

Final thoughts

But does any of this mean ChatGPT can write music? Perhaps not. There’s no performance, and there’s nothing to say the suggestions are good. But it is an interesting use case, perhaps best utilized by musicians who know how to take an idea and make it into something they really want.

It’s also worth bearing in mind ChatGPT was trained on text from 2021 and before. So there’s unlikely to be any musical breakthroughs in its recommendations – it’s literally basing its responses on what’s come before (and sure, some music does the same).

Genuinely, the question of whether Chat GPT can write music can only be answered with “no”. However, it can analyze music-related text it’s been trained on and may be helpful in giving some prompts and ideas to those able to make use of them.

Kevin is the Editor of PC Guide. He has a broad interest and enthusiasm for consumer electronics, PCs and all things consumer tech - and more than 15 years experience in tech journalism.