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MAKE BEATS. LEARN CODE. PROMOTE EQUITY.

v2.0

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BROUGHT TO YOU BY

WITH SUPPORT FROM

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{

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What is the role of AI in

songwriting?

V2.0 Apr 2025

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Go to YourVoiceisPower.ca
From the menu select Extensions - AI Songwriting
If your class is using the workbook, use the link on the page to open the student workbook, then download or make a local copy of the workbook you can edit

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ACCESS THE LESSON RESOURCES

Instructor Cue

To complete the activities in this lesson you need a device with an internet connection and a browser such as a laptop, Chromebook, or iPad. Phones can be used, but the experience is optimized for devices with larger screens.

To access the online workshop resources visit the website is YourVoiceIsPower.ca (https://www.yourvoiceispower.ca) then from the Top Menu select Extensions - AI Songwriting

If you prefer you can provide students with a link directly to the AI Songwriting workshop page (https://www.yourvoiceispower.ca/ai/songwriter)

You can complete the activities in the workshop as a class discussion or you can have students reflect and complete activities individually using the student workbook. Have students download the workbook or make a local copy of the workbook workbook so they can edit the workbook contents

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OBJECTIVE

Learn about AI as a songwriting tool and determine its role in the songwriting process

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SONGWRITING AND AI

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CAN WE USE AI TO WRITE SONG LYRICS?

Today you will create song lyrics about an Indigenous role model using generative AI.

But first let’s learn about generative AI

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WHAT IS AI?

Term	Definition
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI)	�When a computer mimics human intelligence or behaviour�

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WHAT IS GENERATIVE AI?

Term	Definition
GENERATIVE AI	�AI that creates new content such as text, image, music, or video. They create content based on patterns in the data used to teach the AI�

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WHAT IS A LARGE LANGUAGE MODEL?

Term	Definition
LARGE LANGUAGE MODEL (LLM)	�The algorithm that processes natural (human) language when you use generative AI to understand or generate text�

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WHAT IS A PROMPT?

Term	Definition
PROMPT	�The input or instruction provided to an AI model to guide its output

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TEST GENERATIVE AI SONGWRITING

Let’s explore best practices and limitations of generative AI before we use it to create our lyrics.

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AI SAFETY

Keep your personal data to yourself!
Never share information with the generative AI that is not public information

E.g. your name, address, or date of birth

Some AI tools remember the data you enter and use it to answer other requests
The Songwriter Bot you use in this workshop is built on Amazon Bedrock & the Anthropic Claude model which do not store your prompts or completions as per the Songwriter Bot Technical Specifications

Instructor Dialogue

“Before we start using Generative AI to help us create song lyrics, we need to learn the ground rules of AI

The first rule when using AI is to NEVER share information that is not public information, such as your name, address, date of birth, what school you attend.

Remember generative AI is trained by reading data, that might include the data you enter!

Ethical companies will be transparent about whether or not their generative AI tools store any of your prompts or the generated output. Our songwriting bot is based on Anthropic Claude and Amazon Bedrock which do not store your prompts or generated output as outlined in the Songwriter Bot Technical Specifications”

Instructor Cue

Details on the privacy policies of the AI services (Anthropic Claude, and Amazon Bedrock) for the Songwriter bot can be located on the Songwriter Bot Technical Specifications page. Some details are extracted and provided below

Section 2.5 Training Data of the Claude 3 Model Card states the following:��"Claude 3 models are trained on a proprietary mix of publicly available information on the Internet as of August 2023, as well as non-public data from third parties, data provided by data labeling services and paid contractors, and data we generate internally. We employ several data cleaning and filtering methods, including deduplication and classification. The Claude 3 suite of models have not been trained on any user prompt or output data submitted to us by users or customers, including free users, Claude Pro users, and API customers. When Anthropic obtains data by crawling public web pages, we follow industry practices with respect to robots.txt instructions and other signals that website operators use to indicate whether they permit crawling of the content on their sites. In accordance with our policies, Anthropic’s crawler does not access password protected or sign-in pages or bypass CAPTCHA controls, and we conduct diligence on the data that we use. Anthropic operates its crawling system transparently, which means website operators can easily identify Anthropic visits and signal their preferences to Anthropic."

Hosting Service

As stated in the Amazon Bedrock Data Protection policy, "Amazon Bedrock doesn't store or log your prompts and completions. Amazon Bedrock doesn't use your prompts and completions to train any AWS models and doesn't distribute them to third parties".

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SONGWRITING TEST #1

Go to the Songwriter Bot
Provide the following prompt:

You can paste the generated lyrics in your Student Workbook Activity 1 Songwriting Test #1

Create lyrics for a song that tells the true story of a caveman being chased by a dinosaur

Instructor Dialogue

“Let’s test the songwriting skills of the Songwriter Bot with a few different examples before we ask it to create a song about our selected role model.

First let’s have a little fun and ask the Songwriter Bot to create song lyrics that tell the TRUE story of a caveman being chased by a dinosaur.

Copy the prompt from this slide or from your Student Workbook Activity 1. Songwriting Test #1 and then paste the generated lyrics into your Student Workbook in the space provided. You can use the “Copy Lyrics to Clipboard” button to help you copy the lyrics to your workbook.”

Instructor Cue

Have the students go to the Songwriter Bot and type in the prompt. They can copy the prompt from their Student Workbook Activity 1 Songwriting Test #1

Students have a space in their Student Workbook Activity 1 Songwriting Test #1 to paste the generated lyrics. You can copy the lyrics using the “Copy Lyrics to Clipboard” button on the Songwriter Bot page.

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DID ANYONE GET THIS MESSAGE?

We applied AI guardrails to ensure the Songwriter Bot does not generate inappropriate, harmful, or violent lyrics
Because the lyrics generated are different for each person, one student may create lyrics that are flagged as too violent, when another student does not.
To get rid of the message ask for lyrics about a caveman playing with a dinosaur

Instructor Dialogue

Did anyone get this error message?

If you did, that doesn’t mean you did anything wrong!

Why did they appear?

Because, we applied AI guardrails to ensure the Songwriter Bot does not generate inappropriate, harmful, or violent lyrics.

The lyrics generated are different for each person, one student may create lyrics that are flagged as too violent, when another student does not. When the lyrics are flagged as violent the guardrails block the lyrics and this message is returned.

To get rid of the message, you can either ask for lyrics about a caveman playing with a dinosaur which does not hint at any violence, or you can try again to generate lyrics about the caveman being chased by a dinosaur, chances are on the 2nd or 3rd try it will generate lyrics that contain less violence and do not cause the guardrail to block them and return this error message. .

Instructor Cue

You may find that a small number or a large number of students get this message.

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WARNING! HALLUCINATION DETECTED!

Any story or lyrics describing a caveman fighting a dinosaur cannot be true.

Humans and dinosaurs never lived at the same time.

You can highlight any hallucinations in your generated lyrics in your Student Workbook

Instructor Dialogue

“We asked the Songwriter Bot to create lyrics about a TRUE story about a caveman and a dinosaur.But, that's impossible because cavemen and dinosaurs never lived at the same time! The last dinosaurs died about 250 million years ago, the earliest humans first appeared about 1 million years ago.

We just saw our first generative AI hallucination! The generative AI made up something that sounded true but isn’t

In your Student Workbook Activity 1 Songwriting Test #1, highlight any hallucinations (things that you know are not true) in your generated lyrics.”

Instructor Cue

Ask one of the student to read their generated lyrics, or share the lyrics generated when you provide the Songwriter Bot with the prompt: Create lyrics for a song that tells the true story of a caveman being chased by a dinosaur

In their Student Workbook Activity 1 Songwriting Test #1 have the students highlight any hallucinations in their generated lyrics.

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SONGWRITING TEST #2

Go to the Songwriter Bot
Provide the following prompt:

You can paste the generated lyrics in your Student Workbook Activity 2 Songwriting Test #2

Create lyrics for a song about a car mechanic trying to decide what to wear for a date

Instructor Dialogue

“Let’s try another test! Ask the Songwriter Bot to create song lyrics about a car mechanic trying to decide what to wear for a date.

Copy the prompt from this slide or from your Student Workbook Activity 2 Songwriting Test #2 and then paste the generated lyrics into your Student Workbook in the space provided. You can use the “Copy Lyrics to Clipboard” button to help you copy the lyrics to your workbook.”

Instructor Cue

Have the students go to the Songwriter Bot and type in the prompt. They can copy the prompt from their Student Workbook Activity 2 Songwriting Test #2

Students have a space in the Student Workbook Activity 2 Songwriting Test #2 to paste the generated lyrics. You can copy the lyrics using the “Copy Lyrics to Clipboard” button on the Songwriting Bot web page.

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WARNING! BIAS DETECTED!

Did your lyrics assume the car mechanic was a man going on a date with a woman?

LLMs are trained using books, and articles on the internet which may contain biased information including hate speech. Biased information can affect LLM outputs if not filtered out by AI developers.

You can highlight any bias or stereotypes in your generated lyrics in your Student Workbook

Instructor Dialogue

“How many of you have song lyrics that assume the car mechanic is a man preparing for a date with a woman?

Why do you think the generative AI assumed the car mechanic was a man dating a woman?

That’s because most of the data examples found on websites, news sites, and books used to train the LLM featured male car mechanics. If the data used to train is biased then the generated output will be biased.

When you use generative AI to create content and you share it in part or in whole with others you have a responsibility to ensure it is not biased or reinforcing negative stereotypes.

In 2022, someone used generative AI to create rap songs under a persona named FN Meka. They got as far as signing a record deal but the record company got huge backlash and cancelled the deal because the AI rapper was using harmful stereotypes. If you want to learn more, you can find links to this article and other articles and research about bias in AI in your Student Workbook Appendix A - Bias in Large Language Models.

In your Student Workbook Activity 2 Songwriting Test #2, highlight any bias or stereotypes in your generated lyrics.”

Instructor Cue

In their Student Workbook Activity 2 Songwriting Test #2, have the students highlight any bias or stereotypes in their generated lyrics.

If you or your students want to learn more, here are some articles and research on bias in Large Language Models, students have these resources in their Student Workbook Appendix A - Bias in Large Language Models

AI Rapper FN Meka dropped by Capitol over racial stereotyping - BBC News

“FN Meka is an artificial intelligence musician given the appearance of a black male cyborg”

In a statement announcing they had severed ties, Capitol Music Group offered its "deepest apologies to the black community for our insensitivity

“Before CMG dropped the rapper, black activist group Industry Blackout sent them an open letter saying FN Meka was "offensive" and "a direct insult to the Black community and our culture. They said it was "an amalgamation of gross stereotypes, appropriative mannerisms that derive from Black artists, complete with slurs infused in lyrics".

DataBack Vol 2: Truth Before “Indigenous AI” Understanding and Resisting Generative AI - Animikii Inc.

“There’s growing evidence that bias is fundamentally rooted in all the popular AI products on the market.”

“Our examination of the excluded data suggests that documents associated with Black and Hispanic authors and documents mentioning sexual orientations are significantly more likely to be excluded by… blocklist filtering, and that many excluded documents contained non-offensive or non-sexual content (e.g., legislative discussions of same-sex marriage, scientific and medical content). This exclusion is a form of allocational harms and exacerbates existing (language-based) racial inequality as well as stigmatization of LGBTQ+ identities”

“Image generation AI also suffers from a serious case of pan-Indigenization: creating a kind of “global average” of what the software presumes Indigenous people to look like world wide. Simply prompting with the word “Indigenous” will nearly always return an image that is clearly not Indigenous to anywhere. The programs don’t get any better when the systems are prompted to output images of specific groups of Indigenous Peoples.”

Navigating the Biases in LLM Generative AI: A Guide To Responsible Implementation - Forbes Magazine

“AI models are exposed to large amounts of publicly available data. As a result, the model is more likely to favor content that is more readily available while neglecting perspectives and information that are less prevalent online”

“when the training data is not representative of the entire population or target audience. If certain groups or perspectives are underrepresented or excluded from the training data, the AI model will lack the necessary knowledge to generate unbiased and comprehensive content.”

What’s in the Box? An Analysis of Undesirable Content in the Common Crawl Corpus - Luccioni & Viviano ACL-IJCNLP 2021

“The biases found in Internet-scale language models like GPT-2 are representative of the data on which the model was trained”

“The existence of hate speech on the internet has been described as “an important societal problem of our time”, with “profound and lasting” psychological effects on its victims”

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SONGWRITING TEST #3

Go to the Songwriter Bot
Provide the following prompt:

You can paste the generated lyrics in your Student Workbook Activity 3 Songwriting Test #3.

Create lyrics in French about a man eating peanuts

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WARNING! BIAS DETECTED!

Did the lyrics use the word “cacahuete”?

That is a valid French word for peanut, but in Canada we usually say “arachide” or “pinotte”

When one language or culture makes up a larger portion of the data used to train an AI model, it affects the generated output.

How could you develop a model that better represents a less common language and culture like Cree?

Instructor Dialogue

“How many of you have song lyrics that contain the word ‘cacahuete’?

This is an example of a more subtle type of bias that can occur. The word ‘cacahuete’ (pronounced ca - ca - wet) is a valid French word for a peanut, but you would almost never hear anyone in Canada use that word. French speaking Canadians will use the term “arachide” (pronounced a - ra - she - d) or “pinotte” (pronounced like the word peanut in English)

When one language or culture makes up a larger portion of the data used to train AI, it affects the generated output. In this case we see that the data used to train the model likely used more data from France French than Canadian French.

How could you develop a model that better represents a less common language and culture like Cree?

Instructor Cue

Allow the students to discuss then provide the answer below

Answer: Think back to how we addressed the problem with the image thinking the picture of a dog was a cat… to fix it we needed more data to help it learn. If you want a generative AI model that does a better job representing a specific language and culture you need to train it with more data from that language and culture. That’s not always easy, especially for languages and cultures that are based on oral rather than written histories.

There is research taking place trying to determine whether AI can help preserve rather than destroy languages https://www.unite.ai/generative-ai-is-not-a-death-sentence-for-endangered-languages/

Another interesting question to ask the students is what language and culture they think dominates the internet? If you can answer that question it will help you predict what bias is most likely to appear in generative AI.

It is difficult to find data indicating what culture dominates the content on the internet.
There is data on what languages are most prevalent on the internet. There are conflicting reports on exact percentages but most reports agree that English and Chinese are the dominant languages on the internet.

“the languages with more Web content are English and Chinese. Each of these languages was estimated to account for between 16 and 26% of all Web content, followed by Spanish (7–9%), Arabic, Hindi, Russian, French, and Portuguese (3–4%), Japanese, German, and Malay (2–3%), Bengali (1.5–2.3%), and Turkish, Vietnamese, Italian, Korean and Persian (0.8–1.2%)”

Source https://researchoutreach.org/articles/reliably-exploring-presence-languages-internet/

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SONGWRITING TEST #4

Go to the Songwriter Bot
Provide the following prompt:

You can paste the generated lyrics in your Student Workbook Activity 4 Songwriting Test #4

Create lyrics for a song about <insert famous athlete that was recently traded to another team> trying to help their team win a game

Instructor Dialogue

“Let’s try another test! Ask the Songwriter Bot to create song lyrics about a famous athlete.

Make sure you give the prompt a famous athlete who was recently traded to another team trying to help their team win a game.

Paste the generated lyrics into your Student Workbook Activity 4 Songwriting Test #4 in the space provided. You can use the “Copy Lyrics to Clipboard” button to help you copy the lyrics to your workbook.”

Instructor Cue

Have the students go to the Songwriter Bot and type in their prompt using an athlete of their choice

Students have a space in their Student Workbook Activity 4 Songwriting Test #4 to paste the generated lyrics. You can copy the lyrics using the “Copy Lyrics to Clipboard” button on the Songwriter Bot web page.

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WARNING! HALLUCINATION DETECTED!

Do the lyrics suggest they are still playing on the previous team?

LLMs are trained at a point in time. Most generative AI tools are trained on data that is months old, so generated output will not reflect current events unless the tool you are using is specifically designed to incorporate information retrieved from a search engine.

You can highlight any lyrics that do not reflect current events in your Student Workbook

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Do not share private information with AI
Generative AI can create hallucinations
Generative AI can create biased output
Generative AI does not always reflect current events

KEY TAKEAWAYS

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SONGWRITING

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EVERY SONG TELLS A STORY!

Visit the Indigenous Role Model Story Gallery and select one of the stories. Identify key story elements to include in your lyrics. You can capture these in Student Workbook Activity 5 Every Song Tells A Story

OR

Read highlights of Melissa’s story on the next slide.

To complete the workshop in 45 minutes, use Melissa’s story on the next slide

Instructor Dialogue

“Every song tells a story. You are going to write song lyrics to tell the story of an Indigenous role model.

�Visit the Indigenous Role Model Story Gallery and pick a story that you would like to share through your lyrics.

In your Student Workbook Activity 5 Every Song Tells a Story capture some of the important elements of their story you might include in your lyrics such as:

How would you describe this person?
What message or lesson did the story share?
What challenges did they overcome?
What emotions did the story evoke?
What part of the story resonated with you?”

Instructor Cue

If you are completing this workshop in a single 45-60 minute class we recommend you use Melissa’s story or preselect a story that might be relatable to your students to review.

A selection of Indigenous role models and their stories can be found in the Indigenous Role Model Story Gallery.

For each role model there is a summary of their story and a link to the full fireside chat video where the role model shared their story. The fireside chat videos are between 30 and 60 minutes long. They are provided so students have the option of learning more about their selected role model. If you prefer, you may encourage the students to research other role models stories for their song.

The Student Workbook has a link to the Indigenous Role Model Story Gallery and includes questions to help them capture story elements to include in their song lyrics

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MELISSA HANEY - 737 PILOT FOR AIR INUIT

An Inuit woman who grew up in the region of Nunavik, Nunavut
Planes are essential to Northern communities as they bring supplies to local stores and allow residents to visit other communities. There is no road you can drive on to Montreal or Toronto
Started out as a flight attendant
Until she met Indigenous pilots she never knew that was a career option
Her biggest obstacle was a lack of self-confidence
She took pilot lessons and was mentored by other pilots
Advice to her younger self “don’t sweat the small stuff”
Now she is the role model and mentor

Instructor Dialogue

“Melissa Haney is is an airplane pilot. She flies 737s for Air Inuit

We can see her full story on the Indigenous Role Model Story Gallery Page, but we have captured some key elements from her story here that we might want to capture in your song.”

Instructor Cue

Here is the Melissa’s story copied from the Indigenous Role Model Story Gallery

Melissa Haney

Career: Skilled Trades

Identity: Inuit

Province/Territory: Nunavut

“I'm really grateful for what my first job in aviation was, because it really made me open my eyes to see different things and gave me a good base and confidence to move on to take the leap to get my pilot license,” says Melissa Haney who captains a 737 with Air Inuit. She grew up in Nunavik, having lived in a number of places including Kuujjuaq and Inukjuak before moving to Montreal. She’s moved around since then but found her way back to the Northern skies through a career she says she came upon by chance. In many Northern and remote communities, aviation is a way of life but not all youth raised there understand they could have an aviation career there.

Eventually she became a flight attendant. Without having ever seen anyone like her as a pilot, she thought, “if I don't see it, it's something that I can't do.” She had a perception of what a pilot looked like and it wasn’t her. After meeting Indigenous pilots and craving the incredible view from the front of the plane, she started taking pilot lessons, confident she could do it. “I think mentorship is very important, no matter what field you're in, what career you're in, or what you're looking to do in your life,” she reflects, encouraging youth or anyone looking to change careers to seek out a mentor who can guide and support them on their journey. Haney is trying to pay it forward herself by mentoring the next generation of pilots, having had the thrill of flying alongside her own mentors before they retired.

A lot of people think you have to have perfect eyesight and be a math genius to fly but Haney assures that’s not the case, noting you can fly with glasses and you need to know math but it’s mostly adding numbers together and solving problems. Graduating from high school is an important qualification before attending flight school, working your way through license classes to become a commercial pilot. Some people take aviation degree programs so that they have a degree to fall back on if they change their mind. Another approach is a modular program, where you get to work at your own pace. Her advice to Indigenous youth with an interest in aviation is to find a mentor or talk to a school guidance counsellor. Haney works with a group called Elevate Aviation which mentors women and underrepresented groups who aspire to a career in aviation, providing them with resources and flight schools in their area.

When it comes to Indigenous youth who want to leave their community for school for the first time, Haney knows it can be tough, learning how to live by yourself and also a new trade or new things at school. She suggests drawing on one’s support network, family, friends, and guidance counsellors to find answers to questions and get help when needed. Haney’s first big obstacle was self-confidence, believing in herself and her abilities. Bit by bit, with victories small to large, she built her confidence and self-worth, celebrating with her family and friends by her side.

If she could give her younger self advice, it would be to not sweat the small stuff. Otherwise, she wouldn’t change much, as she’s happy with how everything turned out, looking at the big picture. That’s why she encourages youth to move past the small struggles and onto what’s next.

To balance her mental health, something important in her line of work, she listens to her body, maintains a good sleep schedule to get all the rest she needs and gets fresh air every day, even if it’s just for a few minutes. Her job can have ups and downs beyond just take offs and landings and when she needs inspiration, she thinks of how she longed for the view from the pilot’s seat when she got her start as a flight attendant. She thinks about the happy faces of community members excited to see a plane after a long blizzard, about the sunrises and the sunsets and the hopes she has for the next generation of Indigenous pilots. “I want the next group of Indigenous aviators to do more than I did,” she proclaims. From her strong foundation as a flight attendant, Melissa Haney took off towards her new favourite place as a pilot, settling into a career where her dreams could really soar. She never saw someone like her take to the skies as a child, and she couldn’t be what she could not see. Now she’s seeing a new level of success, broadening her horizons as she savours the view from the captain’s seat of a 737.

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WRITE A CHORUS FOR YOUR INDIGENOUS ROLE MODEL

WITHOUT using any AI tools write a chorus for a song about your Indigenous role model in your Student Workbook Activity 6 Write a Chorus for your Indigenous Role Model.

Use the words and emotions you wrote down about the role model for inspiration.

OR

Check out the lyrics I wrote for Melissa without using AI on the following slide

To complete the workshop in 45 minutes, use the pre-written lyrics for Melissa’s story on the next slide

Instructor Dialogue

“Now it’s your turn to try writing song lyrics. �We are going to try writing lyrics WITHOUT using any generative AI!

In your Student Workbook Activity 6 Write a Chorus for your Indigenous Role Model, write a 2-4 line chorus about your Indigenous role model.

Use the notes you made about your role model story for inspiration.

The chorus often

contains “the hook” or catchy part of the song that sticks in your brain.
repeats several times during the song
reinforces the key message of the song.”

Instructor Cue

If you are completing this workshop in a single 45-60 minute class we recommend using the pre-written chorus for Melissa, or that you pre-prepare your own chorus created without AI on a role model of your choice.

Have the students spend 5-10 minutes coming up with a chorus for their Indigenous role model and write it in their Student Workbook Activity 2.1 Write a Chorus for your Indigenous Role Model. Later in the workshop they will compare the lyrics they wrote with lyrics generated by the Songwriter Bot.

Remind the students to reference the notes on key story elements to capture they made about their Indigenous role model story earlier in their Student Workbook.

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MY LYRICS FOR MELISSA (WITHOUT USING AI)

Verse 1

I used to watch planes come and go

Flying through the clouds and snow

A flight attendant I could be

But pilots did not look like me

Chorus

I felt every bump on the way

But I knew it would all be okay

And now I soar high in the sky

Cuz it’s never alone that I fly

Verse 2

Others told me I could break through

They helped me see just what I could do

Now I’m the one who’s in command

Join me I’ll give you a hand

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PROMPT WRITING IS A SKILL

Generative AI uses statistics and probability to provide responses based on patterns it observed during training.

You may have to reword or add details to a prompt several times to get a helpful answer.

Tell me about Romeo and Juliet

The play Romeo and Juliet was written in …

99% of data analyzed on Romeo and Juliet is about the play

Tell me about THE MOVIE Romeo and Juliet

The movie Romeo and Juliet starred Leonardo DiCaprio …

65% of data analyzed on the Romeo and Juliet movie talks about the 1996 version

Tell me about the 1954 movie Romeo and Juliet

58% of data analyzed referring to 1954 Romeo And Juliet movie is Q&A about how to watch it

The 1954 movie Romeo and Juliet can be streamed on…

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PROMPT WRITING TIPS

A well written prompt will specify

Specific details
Length
Style
Tone

Let’s look at some examples…

Give me a short summary of the 1954 Romeo and Juliet movie and whether it deserved the Grand Prix award from the perspective of a movie critic

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PROVIDE SPECIFIC DETAILS

INSTEAD OF

Write lyrics for a song about a dinosaur

TRY��Write lyrics for a song about a T-rex who likes to play catch in the playground but has trouble throwing and catching because of his short arms

Instructor Dialogue

“Suppose you want the Songwriter Bot to create a song about a dinosaur.

If you used the prompt

Write a song about a dinosaur

You will get a song about a dinosaur, but the results will vary widely

it could be about a plant eater or a meat eater or even a cartoon dinosaur
the dinosaur could be doing any activity real or fictional it could be sleeping, eating, walking, hunting, or singing

Chances are you had a slightly more specific idea in your head, so you would likely get better results with a more detailed prompt such as�

Write a song about a T-rex who likes to play catch in the playground but has trouble throwing and catching because of his short arms”

Instructor Cue

You can have the students try the prompts shown on the slide to see how the generated lyrics change, or you can enter these prompts yourself as a live demonstration.

�Students will practice this skill when they write the prompt to create lyrics for a song about their Indigenous role model

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2. SPECIFY LENGTH

INSTEAD OF

Write lyrics for a song about a dinosaur

TRY��Write a 4 line verse and a 2 line chorus for a song about a dinosaur

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3. SPECIFY STYLE

INSTEAD OF

Write lyrics for a song about a dinosaur

TRY��Write lyrics for a children’s song about a dinosaur

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4. SPECIFY TONE

INSTEAD OF

Write lyrics for a song about a dinosaur

TRY��Write lyrics for a scary song about a dinosaur

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DESIGN A PROMPT TO GENERATE LYRICS FOR YOUR INDIGENOUS ROLE MODEL

	Example	What do you want to include in your prompt?
SPECIFIC DETAILS	Create lyrics for a song that talks about Melissa discovering and pursuing a career as an airline pilot
LENGTH	Write a 4 line verse and 2 line chorus
STYLE	Pop song
TONE	Inspirational

For the 45 minute workshop complete the table as a group discussion.

Instructor Dialogue

“Now that you have learned the key elements to writing a good prompt, let’s design a prompt to create our song lyrics!

What story details do we want the lyrics to capture?
How many verses do we want?
How many lines should the chorus be?
What type of song do we want? Hip-Hop? Country? Pop?
What tone do we want? Sad? Inspirational? Hopeful?

You can fill out the table in your Student Workbook Activity 7 Design a Prompt to Generate a Song About Your Indigenous Role Model

Instructor Cue

You can agree on these as a class or mallow each student to come up with their own answers.

Students can fill out the table for their selected Indigenous Role Model story in their Student Workbook Activity 7 Design a Prompt to Generate a Song About Your Indigenous Role Model.

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FINAL SONGWRITING TEST

Write a prompt based on your design to ask the Songwriter Bot to generate lyrics

You can paste the generated lyrics in your Student Workbook Activity 8

Create a 4 line verse and a 2 line chorus for an inspirational pop song that talks about Melissa discovering and pursuing a career as an airline pilot based on this story <Copy and paste the story from the role model gallery into your prompt>

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COMPARE YOUR LYRICS TO THE GENERATED LYRICS

Let me tell you a story ‘bout…

Living on the plains…

For the lyrics create with and without AI, assign a score for each question between 1 and 10.

1 (Not true) - 10 (Definitely true).

Do the lyrics

Highlight the events you felt were important?
Have good rhythm and rhyme?
Have phrases or words you like and would use?
Capture the emotion you wanted?
Feel like “Your” song? Give you a sense of pride and ownership?

You can write your answers in your Student

Workbook Activity 9 Score Your Lyrics,

Instructor Dialogue

“Compare the lyrics generated by the Songwriter Bot to the lyrics written WITHOUT AI.

Score your lyrics and the lyrics generated by the Songwriter Bot for each question below from 1- 10 where 1 = NOT TRUE and 10 = DEFINITELY TRUE

Do the lyrics

Highlight the events or moments you felt were important?
Have good rhythm and rhyme when you read them out loud?
Have phrases or words you like and would use?
Capture the emotion you wanted?
Feel like “Your” song? Give you a sense of pride and ownership?

You can write your scores in your Student Workbook Activity 9 Score Your Lyrics

Instructor Cue

Give the students time to score their lyrics and the generated lyrics in their Student Workbook Activity 9 Score Your Lyrics. Then advance to the next slide to discuss AI as a songwriting tool based on their analysis and scoring.

Students who struggled or were unable to write their own song lyrics can still contribute to the discussion by scoring the generated song lyrics.

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DO YOU THINK AI REPLACES A SONGWRITER?

CLASS DISCUSSION

Instructor Dialogue

“Based on your personal experience, including what you have learned in this workshop so far do you think AI replaces a songwriter?

Professionals in the music industry are divided on the role of AI in songwriting. If you want to learn more, there are some interesting articles in your Student Workbook Appendix B - Industry Opinions on AI as a Songwriter you can read if you want to read different opinions and perspectives.”

Instructor Cue

Class discussions may bring up a number of questions and discussion points. Students will learn more about copyright and plagiarism on the upcoming slides but the topic may come up in this discussion as well.

If you want to learn more, listed in Student Workbook Appendix B - Industry Opinions on AI as a Songwriter, and listed below are articles and quotes expressing a variety of opinions and thoughts on the topic of the use of generative AI in songwriting sharing perspectives from the music industry for those who are interested.

George Howard, professor of music business

“When the drum machine emerged in the ’80s, people said we won’t need drummers. But drummers were able to manipulate this new technology, and together with the sampler it arguably created hip-hop.“

As ChatGPT Sets the Internet Aflame will AI write the lyrics of tomorrow’s hits? - Music Business Podcast

“It’s like having a songwriting partner who has great ideas that you can either use or not use, but you cannot hurt their feelings.”

“AI is not inherently good or bad. It’s how we use it that’s really going to dictate [AI’s] impact in the world.”

“I remember watching a UK TV show where Bjorn from ABBA admitted they used rhyming dictionaries when they were writing all of their timeless pop classics. Is a rhyming dictionary generative AI?”

Musicians, Machines, and the AI-Powered Future of Sound - wired.com

“Speculation that computers might compose music has been around as long as the computer itself”

“generative AI isn’t unlike turntables: When artists discovered they could use them to scratch records and sample their sounds, they created whole new genres”

“copyright may need a substantial rethink”

Artistry in the Algorithms: Music in the Age of AI - Berklee College of Music

“Camp finds AI most helpful in the brainstorming phase of musical composition. “I think creatives of all fields are familiar with the problem where you’ve got like 80 percent of it figured out but there’s this one thing that stumps you,”

“As for the ethics of using a computer to help compose a song, Camp sees it as no different from the way musicians for centuries have looked to other songs for inspiration.”

“there is a gray area when it comes to credit. “It’s hard to know when it’s the artist’s duty to disclose,”

AI music isn’t going away. Here are 4 big questions about what’s next National Public Radio (NPR) Music

“Growing awareness of the fact that many AI models are trained by scraping the internet and ingesting copyrighted works to use as templates for new content prompted litigation. A pile of lawsuits were filed against OpenAI by fiction and nonfiction authors and media companies”

Composing music with AI isn’t new but recent advances have serious implications for the music industry - ABC News

“Computer assisted composition has been around since the 1970s”

“Caitlin Yeo has been writing music for the screen for more than 20 years. She's concerned that the ease and sophistication of musical generative AI have the real potential to replace human composers' jobs.”

“AI doesn't have the ability to discern between irony and fact," she says, adding that without oversight, AI has the potential to make a "cultural soup" or even misrepresenting cultural information altogether.”

‘You can try to fight it or adapt’: How Canadian musicians are responding to AI’s rapid advancements - CBC Music

"there's really no replacing the human experience in art. I feel like what makes my music significant is the human aspect of it."

“AI can't access the emotionality of an artist's work, and it can only learn from the past work of an artist. “As an artist, we grow and change," Pemberton added. "I'm not the same person. It would be weird if I was just doing the exact same thing over and over again."

“creatives working behind the scenes believe that AI is not here to replace them, but to help evolve their roles. This includes the work of producers, engineers and mixers whose work is becoming more and more automated nowadays thanks to various AI-assisted programs.”

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WHAT DOES A PROFESSIONAL MUSICIAN THINK?

Indigenous singer

YB Nakota shares his thoughts on AI as a songwriting tool

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LEGAL DEFINITION #1

Term	Definition
COPYRIGHT	�The legal right granted to the creator of the original works, including the right to reproduce, distribute and display their work

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LEGAL DEFINITION #2

Term	Definition
PLAGIARISM	�The act of using someone else’s work, ideas, or expressions without proper acknowledgement or permission and presenting them as one’s own

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THOUGHTS ON ETHICS AND LEGAL ISSUES

Jeff Ward, Founder of the Indigenous technology company Animikii, shares his thoughts on the ethics of AI as a songwriting tool

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42

DO YOU HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT COPYRIGHT?

If you create a song and you reuse lyrics from another song without their permission you are violating copyright.

The Your Voice is Power remix competition has permission from artists for students to re-use their clips provided in the program sound library.

Your Prompt

Generated lyrics…

©?

Who owns the copyright of content created from YOUR prompt + a COMPANY-OWNED GENERATED AI that learned from OTHERS work?

This is still a topic of debate in the legal field since the tools may be trained using copyrighted data. The more you modify the output after it’s generated the more likely it will be legally considered your work.

Instructor Dialogue

“Do you think you need to worry about copyright?

If you are writing song lyrics and creating songs it is important to consider copyright.

If you re-use lyrics or music clips from another song without their permission you are violating copyright.

The Your Voice is Power remix competition where you use Python code to remix song clips to make your own song has permission from the artists featured in the sound library to re-use their clips in your songs. So using those clips is not violating copyright.

If you start downloading songs from your favorite streaming service and using snips of those songs in your remix you would be violating copyright because you do not have permission to use them. There are some music and sound libraries on the internet that contain clips released under a creative commons license which allows you to reuse, remix and build on their material as long as you give attribution/credit to the original creators.

Copyright is a hotly debated topic surrounding generative AI

If YOU write a prompt, and a COMPANY owned Generative AI tool trained on data from OTHERS who never explicitly gave the company permission to re-use their work

Does the AI tool violate copyright when it generates new text based on other s work?
Who owns the copyright for the output generated by the AI?

This is still a topic of debate in the legal field. The more you modify the output after it’s generated the more likely it will be legally considered your work. If you are want to learn more there are related articles in your Student Workbook Appendix C - Generated AI for Songwriting and Copyright Law”

Instructor Cue

If you want to learn more, here are some articles with sample quotes related to copyright and generative AI, students have these resources in their Student Workbook Appendix C - Generated AI for Songwriting and Copyright Law

Anthropic Settles in Landmark Copyright Battle over AI training

Copyright implications of AI Generated Music - adler/law

“the general rule In the United States is that music generated entirely by AI cannot be copyrighted. the Copyright Office has generally denied copyright protection for works created entirely by AI without human authorship.”

AI can make up songs now, but who owns the copyright? The answer is complicated - The Conversation.com

“Australian case law dictates that each work must originate through a human author’s “creative spark” and “independent intellectual effort”. This is where the issue becomes contentious. A court would likely scrutinise precisely how the sound recording was generated. If the user’s prompt demonstrated sufficient “creative spark” and “independent intellectual effort”, then authorship might be found.”

AI can write the lyrics, but who owns the music is up for debate - BloombergLaw

“The resulting song includes a combination of AI-generated lyrics and human-made musical expression. Who owns the copyrights? The US Copyright Office is tasked with finding the answer. The agency says lyrics like ‘River of Love’ can’t receive copyright protection under existing law. The agency, part of the Library of Congress, issued guidance in March 2023 stating that any AI-generated content alone is not copyrightable—only human creativity can receive protection.”

State of the Arts: How should Canadian Copyright Law Treat Works Generated by Aritifical Intelligence? Canadian Bar Association

“I argue that AI has emerged as an important tool for authors and that the user is likely the best candidate for authorship in the work. However, using AI is invariably a complex process involving multiple human contributors. I argue that legislative reform is needed so that the Copyright Act reflects this practical reality. I propose that the law should adopt an approach to AI resembling that of “makers” in cinematographic works, and that this approach would strike the suitable balance between providing economic incentives for innovation and protecting the public’s interest in the dissemination of artistic works:”

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DO YOU HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT PLAGIARISM?

If you use generative AI to create a story, song lyrics, or a picture and share it as if you created it yourself you are committing plagiarism.

You need to be transparent about the use of generative AI. Provide an attribution to indicate when generative AI is used. Attribution might include:

Name and version of the generative AI tool
Date the output was generated
URL for the generative AI tool

For example:

“This lyric was generated by the Songwriter Bot v1.0 in Jan, 2024 at yourvoiceispower.ca/ai/songwriter-bot“

Instructor Dialogue

Do you think you need to worry about plagiarism?

If you are using generative AI to create content then you need to ensure you are not committing plagiarism.

Be transparent about the use of generative AI by providing attribution/credit to indicate it was used.

Provide an attribution to indicate generative AI was used.

Attribution should include

Name and version of the generative AI tool
Date the output was generated
URL for the AI tool.

For example:

“This lyric was generated by the Songwriter Bot v1.0 in Jan, 2024 at yourvoiceispower.ca/ai/songwriter-bot “

Instructor Cue

This attribution format is based on the guidance provided in the article American Psychological Association (APA) How to cite ChatGPT . The APA is used as guidance for providing attribution by many academic institutions.

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CAN YOU USE GENERATIVE AI AT SCHOOL OR WORK?

Whether or not you can use Generative AI depends on

School policies
Workplace policies
Provincial and National laws

The Emily Carr University of Art & Design AI policy says instructors decide when students can use generative AI for assignments, but requires students to provide an attribution to the generative AI tool when its content is used for submitted work.

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DOES YOUR SCHOOL HAVE AN AI POLICY?

Does your school have an AI policy?

YES?

What is it?
As a class, discuss whether you agree with the policy
Write the school AI policy in your Student Workbook

NO?

As a group, propose an AI policy for your class. Use the Emily Carr School AI Policy as a starting point.
You can write your proposed class AI policy in your Workbook
Should the teacher or the student have final say on a classroom AI policy?

Instructor Dialogue

“Does our school have an AI policy?

YES?

Let’s review it together
Do you agree with the policy?
Write the school AI policy in your Student Workbook Activity 10 Does Your School Have an AI Policy?

NO?

As a group, let’s come up with an AI policy for our class, let’s use the Emily Carr School of Art & Design AI policy as a starting point.
Write your proposed class AI policy in your Student Workbook Activity 10 Does Your School Have an AI Policy?
Should the teacher or the student have final say on a classroom AI policy?”

Instructor Cue

Not all schools and school boards have an AI Policy.
If you know your school has an AI policy - share the portion of the policy that is relevant to the students with the class. You may also choose to share the policy as it applies to teachers as well as students.
If you do not know if the school or school board has an AI Policy - Ask the students to search the school or school board website to try and determine if there is a policy.
If you cannot locate a school or school board AI policy or you know your school or school board has not developed an AI policy - share the Emily Carr School of Art & Design AI Policy on the previous slide and ask the students if they think this would be a reasonable classroom AI policy. If you don’t agree with the policy proposed by the students, for example if they suggest “all students should be allowed to use generative AI for all their homework as long as they provide an attribution”, remind the students, that generally in the classroom, the teacher has the final say on the rules as long as they are following the overall school rules. Even if that rule is not one that will be the most popular with the students.

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KEY TAKEAWAYS

Writing a good prompt is a skill
There are ethical and legal considerations to using generative AI to write lyrics
Check school policy before using generative AI for school work

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WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON USING GENERATIVE AI

IN THE SONGWRITING PROCESS?

As a class, discuss how you think generative AI fits into a creative process like songwriting?

Consider

What generative AI does well
The limitations of generative AI
The legal and ethical aspects of generative AI

?

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{

}

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Want to keep creating?

Use your lyrics in a song remix created using code

MAKE BEATS. LEARN CODE. PROMOTE EQUITY.

Visit YourVoiceIsPower.ca to learn more

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MAKE BEATS. LEARN CODE. PROMOTE EQUITY.

WELL DONE & THANK YOU!