App transcribes instrument sounds into sheet music

A startup addresses the lack of tools available for accurately transforming audio into sheet music by using advanced machine learning technology.

We have seen innovation play a key role in many creative industries. Music is certainly one of these. The startup GreenNote created a device which allows users to listen to the sounds made by plants. Moreover, the invention Soundbops gives children an intuitive way to learn music through experimentation. Now, Frettable seeks to facilitate music making through a new mobile application. The technology allows users to produce sheet music simply and easily.

Frettable is aimed at musicians of all levels. It is not necessary for users to have any prior knowledge of music theory before using the application. The idea was thought up by Greg Burlet when he struggled to write music with his long-distance bandmate. He begun work on the technology in 2015, experimenting with the possibility of a machine recognizing musical notes. Frettable uses technology similar to that used in speech recognition. The application uses artificial intelligence in order to convert the sound into written music. The more the application is exposed to instrumental sounds, the better it gets at recognizing them.

Additionally, Frettable analyzes the instrumental recording to write it out. It is polophonic in that it is able to handle singular notes and chords. It can also generate tabs for string instruments. This makes it easy to share music and receive feedback from a community of musicians. Users can share and comment on each other’s creations via Frettable’s online community. Users can also inspire one another by collaborating on publicly-posted songs.

Perhaps this is just the beginning of artificial intelligence’s role in music-making. Could this technology lead to a future of international remote musical collaboration?