I turned my poem into a great sounding song, accompanied by a top-notch sounding band, sung by an amazing singer…. And it took me 10 minutes, start to finish. That’s a fact! Sounds impossible, but it is 100% true and accurate. 

(Take a listen, link below)

Turning your poems into finished music in the past involved a few key steps: decide on a genre, choose a structure, find a melody, a chorus, add chords & instrumentation, refine the lyrics, record a demo, collaborate or produce, find a music publisher, submit to bands, and a dozen more things. There are no shortcuts to this process… until now.

My poem turned into a song involved music that was AI generated because I can’t play any instruments, and the singer was AI generated because I can’t sing a note. 

My poem “Sweet 16 Birthday Words of Wisdom” 4 stanzas, 88 words was written in 2007 and has over 90,000 views on my authorsden site. While reviewing my poetry I realized some of my poems fit the profile to become a song. But how do I find musicians, or the better question – how do they find me?  Do I have to follow all those steps?

I didn’t need AI to create the lyrics. That part was done, but my poem needed a slight modification… a chorus… and that begins the metamorphosis from the poem to a song. I only needed to add a chorus, so I wrote one that fit the message, pattern and structure style of my poem.

The poem with its new facelift was now ready to slide into the music world. Artificial Intelligence Apps (250 +) have multiplied exponentially into so many different types: search engines, content creation, text enhancement, video creation and editing, knowledge management, project management, scheduling, presentations, resume builders, automation, music, and the categories continue to grow.

I entered the new version of my poem with added chorus into an AI music App that offered a crazy number of options: styles/genres including country, hip-hop, ballads, reggae, and also thousands of voices with the option of having it made in 70+ languages!  Then I learned I could add various instruments into the mix:  violins, a horns section, piano, an accompanying oboe… the combinations seemed endless, but like I mentioned before, my music talents were non-existent. So, I entered the request as-is with no enhancement requests from me. It may have been a 1 in a thousand shot, but the results blew me away! 

Now my thoughts went in 50 different directions. 

Can I copyright it and own it? Research showed that in the US, AI-generated content cannot be copyrighted because it is not considered to be the work of a human creator. However, AI-assisted songs may be able to be copyrighted. When seeking registration, you need to disclose that your work contains AI-generated content. Even though AI-generated voices aren't protected by copyright, using them improperly can still lead to legal trouble. Avoid using AI voices that replicate real people without permission.

Generally, in any artistic song collaboration there are over a half-dozen license, agreements, contracts, and associations to be involved with as well as rights with the singer, band, label, unions, managers, lawyers etc. Don’t forget the CMA, AMA, ASCAP, NMPA.

Songwriters wait years for that one big break. Per 2023 statistics, millions of songs are written worldwide each year, and less than 1% make it all the way through. Here’s a fact from Forbes; 4 Out Of 5 songs sent to Music Services are never even played.

My intention is not to put singers, musicians or connected artists out of work. It is the exact opposite. I want to get their attention and sell my songs so they can make their own versions of it. At my age, and with a <1% chance of getting noticed, time won’t let me march to the slow regimented process to get noticed. No thanks, I’m allowing AI to make the music so my lyrics will get noticed. I don’t want to publish the AI version. I just want to get found so my words will finally see the human created music it deserves.  

They say, “You can’t cheat the system, you have to pay your dues…” no I don’t. Times change, processes change. AI corrections already pop up in our texts, looks for mistakes in our tax forms, and even automatically assists you in search, no matter how bad you spelled the request. The Washington Post reported that music producers who work with mainstream artists often say that pitch-correction is just a standard tool on the mixing desk — sometimes lightly used, sometimes more extensively. 

Classic Auto-Tune was invented by Antares Audio Technologies in 1997. Auto-Tune itself was not originally an AI tool — it is DSP (digital signal processing)-based. But newer pitch-correction tools are increasingly AI-powered, making them smarter and harder to detect. Estimates are that about 60% of today’s recording artists are using Auto-Tune or similar pitch-correction tools in a noticeable way, while commercial pop use is greater than 90%. But “noticeable” is key — many uses are subtle and aim only to correct small imperfections. So, I’ll park that concern for me.

Poems and songs are miles apart. There is rhythm, a meter, and a flow in poetry that does not automatically translate to music. Musical arrangements set the flow or the meter, and the top songs have a “great hook.”  Poems are written in certain pentameter and rarely have a hook or a chorus. A songwriting course will make these differences abundantly clear.

The processes of the song writing establishment are always changing. Listening to music changed from AM to FM stations, was unexpectedly interrupted by Napster and other torrents. Records changed from 78’s to 45’s then to 33 1/3 RPM, before finding tape, CD’s, and currently to digital and owning the world’s music with an Apple or Spotify streaming service. Things change, and the music business is about to change once more.

I decided to take it one step further and add video clips to the song from Pixabay.com. It was another fun thing to play with and became my first steps into video editing. 

     Would I change anything in my finished AI song? Absolutely! But technically I don’t have that expertise. I have a friend who has a recording studio in Nashville and I sent them my poem turned into a song by AI. They knew right away that the music was artificial because the tones and sound of the music seemed off. They could hear it, but I couldn’t. That’s why you need a human, a real musician to create and tweak the music to form complimentary sounds and patterns that are receptive to our brain. One part of our brain (the nucleus accumbens) is strongly associated with the pleasurable experience of music, while the other parts (the medial prefrontal cortex, and the hippocampus) are parts of the brain that connect music to a lifetime of memories. Let’s see you explain that to AI. It may understand the process, but AI can never experience the release of dopamine, the neurotransmitter that is associated with the feelings of pleasure and reward. 

123:  your poem + add a chorus + submit to AI Music, and tweak the music/genre/sounds.

Turn poems into songs. Good luck… nobody ever did that… except Taylor Swift, Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Joni Mitchell, Lou Reed, Jim Morrison, Elton John, Alica Keys, Tupac and a million other creative folks.

Anybody out there that wants to spin a new version of my song, ring me up.

Below are the words, but take a listen here:   

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPt0uFT0Hw8

Sweet 16 Birthday Words of Wisdom

Reaching 16 is a milestone,
a happy point in life.
You've set your personality
and your tolerance for strife.

By now you know right from wrong
and how to influence friends.
It’s time to look down the road
at forks and around the bends.

(chorus)

Sixteen candles, burning bright,
A world ahead, dreams take flight.
Step by step, the path is new,
Trust yourself—you’ll make it through.

The road ahead is wonderful,
some choices will be clear.
Your path depends on bravery
to push aside the fear.

When you choose this way or that,
slow choices or if snappy,
make the choices best for you,
the ones that make you happy.

(chorus)

Sixteen candles, burning bright,
A world ahead, dreams take flight.
Step by step, the path is new,
Trust yourself—you’ll make it through.

Copywrite 2007

Michael Charles Messineo