A Thorny Problem: When an AI Composes Music

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Get song lyrics right with help from Apple Music

The Verge writes about legal issues when an AI composes music.

The word “human” does not appear at all in US copyright law, and there’s not much existing litigation around the word’s absence. This has created a giant gray area and left AI’s place in copyright unclear. It also means the law doesn’t account for AI’s unique abilities, like its potential to work endlessly and mimic the sound of a specific artist.

Not to mention the question of  who owns the copyright of this new music. Fascinating discussion here.

Beyoncé's Coachella Performance Coming to Netflix

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Over the weekend Netflix announced Beyoncé’s Coachella performance will be coming to the service on April 17.

…a trailer that dropped today promises the special, called Homecoming: A Film By Beyoncé, will be “interspersed with candid footage and interviews detailing the preparation and powerful intent behind her vision, [the movie] traces the emotional road from creative concept to cultural movement.”

GarageBand And The Musicians Who Use It

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This year is GarageBand’s 15th birthday, and Rolling Stone wrote a great article on how it changed how musicians created their art.

In the first media visit Apple has ever allowed to its under-the-radar Music Apps studio, the team of engineers showed Rolling Stone how the creation process for Garageband’s two types of sounds — synthetic and “real” — can span weeks or sometimes months per instrument, with new hurdles at every turn.

Apple Commemorates Aretha Franklin's Life with Apple Music Playlists

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The music world lost a pillar with the passing of Aretha Franklin. She was suffering from pancreatic cancer, as did Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. To commemorate her life Apple has several playlists on Apple Music celebrating her powerful contributions to soul, jazz, R&B, blues, and funk. Aretha’s influence crossed musical genres and that won’t likely change even though she’s gone. You can check out her Apple Music playlists in the Music app on your iPhone or iPad, or under the Browse tab in iTunes music section.

Apple Commemorates Aretha Franklin’s Life with Apple Music Playlists

TMO Background Mode Encore Interview with Freelance Tech Jounalist Kirk McElhearn

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Photo of Kirk McElhearn for Background Mode.

Kirk McElhearn is an expert technical journalist for all things Apple. He was a Senior Contributor at Macworld for 15 years, is known as “The iTunes Guy,” and writes about Macs, security, iTunes, books and music. Kirk has also written several “Take Control Books,” including tutorials on iTunes, Audio Hijack and Scrivener. In this encore appearance, Kirk and I chatted about the evolution of photography at Apple, the emergence of the iPhone as a pocket supercomputer-camera, AI technologies and facial recognition used in iPhone photography, lens and CCD technologies, Aperture vs. iPhoto/Photos, managing digital assets, and how sophisticated software has allowed the average user to take great photos. And more. We finished with a discusion of Kirk’s new podcast (with Jeff Carlson) called PhotoActive which is all about photography and the Apple ecosystem.

Apple Camp 2018: Robots, Music, and Video

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If you’re a kid between 8 and 12 years old, it’s time to sign up for Apple Camp. This year’s programs include Coding with Sphero Robots, Beat Making and Songwriting with GarageBand, and Telling Stories with Clips. The programs are hosted at local Apple stores and are 90 minutes a day for three days throughout July. The programs are all free and they fill up fast so be sure to sign up right away. You can check out the program descriptions and sign up at the Apple Camp website.

Apple Camp 2018: Robots, Music, and Video

How to Correct Siri’s Music Choices

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Hey Siri

OK, so Siri isn’t always great at answering follow-up questions. (And if you talk to Apple’s voice assistant a lot, you’ve probably used colorful language at it because of that very thing.) But fortunately, it does parse follow-up requests well for music, so you can correct it when it chooses the wrong item to play. We’ll tell you how to do that in today’s Quick Tip!