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Check out today's Google doodle that use AI to harmonize in Bach's style melodies you input. Here's an example with some random melody notes I put in:
https://g.co/doodle/xv246r

https://g.co/doodle/xcnsv4

EDIT: Hey jazzy: HOW did you do those different note values, and accidentals?

I did this post before seeing what you were able to do.
Gonna leave it as it was, even though it was mistaken, because hey, I already wrote it, and I don't have it in me to do it over.....


Yeah.

I was gonna post about this too. Thanks for beating me to it.

At first I thought it would be interesting.
Well heck, it is interesting.

But it's not real good.

It doesn't seem like it's very far from being good, though -- but it's real far from being great.

Why it's not even 'good': Unless I'm missing something, it doesn't let you do any rhythm or note values other than a sequence of equal-length notes -- basically quarter notes, or maybe they can be felt as slow eighth notes, whichever -- and without any rests.
And, unless I'm missing something, you can't do any sharps or flats.

If you could do different note values and rests and sharps ad flats, it would be good.

But it still wouldn't be 'great,' because, as it explains (I was wanting to copy/paste exactly what it says, but, besides that I'm not sure it would be possible to do that, I wasn't able to get that page back, after I saw it once) ......as it explains, the system thinks that Bach mostly uses predictable patterns.

Ugh.

......and it harmonies your melody, using what it thinks are Bach's predictable patterns.

Anyway, it is fun -- anyway.
And it lets you get a preserved record of their harmonized version of what you did. I played with it a bit, and I'm going to present, right here, for the whole world, my 'best' effort.

By which I really mean my worst.

Because, as I think you'll find, if you do any kind of NORMAL melody, well, because it only lets you do a steady rhythm with no rests and no sharps or flats, plus -- and I forgot to mention this up there, but so what, that means I get to mention it now: it doesn't do any "phrasing," or any shaping of melodies; it's just "clang, clang, clang" -- if you do any kind of normal melody, what you wind up with it the ugliest, most boring and unappealing thing you've probably ever imagined. It feels like a nice toy for about 2 seconds, until you hear the 3rd of 4th note, and you realize what a disaster this is.

The only way I could get anything that sounded half interesting and not-ugly was to write the most random, most unmelodic melody I could write. That wound up sounding less bad than the normal melodies, maybe because it stumped the program a little and kept it from being so mediocre. Well actually it still is mediocre, just a little more interesting kind of mediocre.

So, here is it, folks -- the worst, most flawed melody I could do, which wound up being my least bad "harmonized version" that I could get from that program:

my most incompetent possible melody

Classifying this as "mediocre" or "great" depends on what you are measuring. This is an exercise on "learning" Bach's harmonization techniques based on 306 of his Chorales.

Moreover, there are examples of this doodle showing at least fourth-species counterpoint and use of accidentals, nevertheless you are claiming that it only supports a "sequence of equal-length notes". If you actually ask this doodle to harmonize some of the cantus firmus from Fuchs et al. you might be surprised by the result. So, I do not get most of your negative comments, but I guess we have completely different expectations... at least I did not expect to have a personal Bach popping up on my desktop

Good fun.

Of course not -- they were wrong.

Still wondering how Jazzy or anyone was able to do accidentals and different note values.....

Well I input something similar to the dies irae and here's how it came out:

https://g.co/doodle/wn2gwu

Of course, having to wind it up in two measures kind of cramped my style a little...

The buttons for flat/sharp are to the left of the "Harmonize" button, but they tend to disappear a lot...if they changed to something else, click on the staff. You can have eighth or quarter notes depending on how far away you click from the last note.

So I thought of putting in an actual Bach melody, and here is the result:

https://g.co/doodle/zdktb7

Wow that D-flat sounds out of place. Other than that, the algorithm did not too bad I guess.

(BTW: after some messing around, I had found out that I could open up the capability for sixteenths by clicking on the guitar-amp on the right, and then on the "rock on" hand gesture to the left.)

I don't think you really need anything as sophisticated as AI to produce this sort of thing, just a few dozen lines of Basic on an ordinary computer will do.

Fugues

Depends on what you are trying to achieve. You will find algorithms that apply counterpoint and voice leading "rules" to a melodic line. But this was _not_ what google's team did. If you want to understand what they did you can read a simplified description here and a detailed description here. The source code is also available.


Well, the Bach doodle is nothing but a script running on your web browser...