Hi all,
I have found several sites which can generate lyrics, and sites which can
create whole songs, but I can’t find a site that will generate lyrics to
fit an existing tune/melody (or the meter thereof).
Does anyone know of one ?
(I’m crap at poetry/lyrics, and prefer instrumental music, but we now have a
singer who’s going to need to sing something, so… !)
Cheers.
Can’t think of one offhand. Maybe there would be copyright issues, which could be why not?
When you say an existing tune, do you mean something that’s already been put out somewhere, or an original tune of your own?
Good point, and it is germane to the OP. He wouldn’t want to get sued.
The latter. Well, not me, but a fellow band member - would that still
have copyright issues ?
(Although there are a couple of existing instrumental tunes that I would
like to use as the basis for songs, but I know that would require permission.)
Wouldn’t think so. But people might be reluctant to create a ‘lyrics from tune’ generator because of fears that it might be used to produce unauthorized derivative works?
What kind of style is it? Has anyone in your band had a shot at lyric writing?
It’s mainly jazzy funk.. the composers are writing lyrics, but it’s a slow
process - just thought I could speed it up.
And it’d be invaluable if I ever finish a tune of my own !
Just a thought: there are probably a few lyric writers on the board here. Hey, on a good day I can sometimes approach being a half-way decent lyricist myself. At least, I’ve posted links to some of my material in the ‘roster’ thread, so you can take a listen and decide for yourself….
If you were willing to make a rough demo of the music available, you might find a suitable collaborator. Probably get a better result than from an AI… I’ve experimented with AI lyric generation and not been too impressed…
Thanks, I’ll bear it in mind. (They’re not my tunes after all !)
If the song is publicly known, you could probably just ask the AI to write the lyrics to fit the meter. Or just tell the AI what the meter is.
I tried telling ChatGPT "Write funny parody song lyrics about the ‘straightdope.com’ message board in the meter of the song ‘Amazing Grace’. Here’s what it came up with. Not too good or funny of a parody, but it’s (barely) singable:
Got it — you want a funny parody about straightdope.com set to the meter of “Amazing Grace”. I’ll keep the structure and rhythm so it can be sung to the original tune, but make it a playful ode to the quirks, in-jokes, and personalities of the Straight Dope Message Board.
Here’s a full parody version:
Straight Dope Board
(to the tune of “Amazing Grace”)Straight Dope, how sweet the snark,
That schooled a clueless dweeb,
I once asked why the sky was dark,
And got cites I could read.'Twas mods that taught my posts to mind,
And snipped my witty flame,
The Pit was harsh, but still I find
I love it just the same.Through threads and tangents, maps and pies,
We fight for truth (and cake),
We quote old Cecil, roll our eyes,
At trolls we love to shake.When hamsters run the servers slow,
And pages fail to load,
We curse, refresh, and hope they’ll go
Back up—our happy node.
If you want, I can also make a “deeper cut” parody that references specific user names, legendary threads, and inside jokes from the board’s long history so it feels like an insider anthem. Would you like me to do that next?
(I did let it do a ‘deeper cut’ version, and even a ‘deeper deeper cut’ version that only members dating from the very early 2000s would get, which I will share if anybody wants, but I don’t want to junk up the thread too much)
Oops, brain fart. Those links are on the ‘Composers and recordists’ thread, not the roster one.
Do you know how I could go about doing that ?
For example, how would I describe the meter of Amazing Grace
to ChatGPT ?
Would it recognize ABC music notation ?
Well, I’m not an expert on music theory, but if it’s a publicly known song, it shouldn’t be too difficult. Like I said, I just asked ChatGPT to write lyrics in the meter of Amazing Grace, and it did the rest.
If, say, Amazing Grace was not a publicly known song, I might say “write lyrics to a song that fits in 3/4 time”, which is the time signature Amazing Grace is in. Most Pop and Rock songs are in 4/4 time, but you mentioned the music you want lyrics to is Jazzy funk, which could be any time signature.
I think such a tool would be challenging to create.
One approach would be to split it in two parts 1) an algorithm that analyzes a song to find the chord progression, melody, etc. and 2) a general AI that uses the information from #1 in the prompt to generate lyrics.
Since you know how to play the music, you already have the information from #1. Like others have said, ask an AI to generate lyrics on your topic and include some subjective description of the music. If the verses are too long or too short ask it to adjust, or give it the syllable count.
I think you’re more likely to get interesting lyrics from one of the big AIs than if you found a custom lyrics AI. It’s not unusual to write the music and lyrics separately and then arrange them to fit.
Thanks! Yes, I have part #1 already.
I may have to give one of the big AIs a go; some of the lyrics i’ve got
from the lyric generating sites have been .. awful - although to be fair I
have heard worse lyrics in non AI generated lyrics !!