It’s no secret that we love music projects at Pi Towers. On the contrary, we often shout it from the rooftops like we’re in Moulin Rouge! But the PianoAI project by Zack left us slack-jawed: he built an AI on a Raspberry Pi that listens to his piano playing, and then produces improvised, real-time accompaniment.

The PianoAI

Inspired by a story about jazz musician Dan Tepfer, Zack set out to create an AI able to imitate his piano-playing style in real time. He began programming the AI in Python, before starting over in the open-source programming language Go.

The Go mascot is a gopher. Why not?

Zack has published an excellent write-up of how he built PianoAI. It’s a very readable account of the progress he made and the obstacles he had to overcome while writing PianoAI, and it includes more example videos. It’s hard to add anything to Zack’s own words, so I shan’t try.

Some of Zack’s notes for his AI

If you just want to try out PianoAI, head over to his GitHub. He provides a detailed guide that talks you through how to implement and use it.

Music to our ears

The Raspberry Pi community never fails to amaze us with their wonderful builds, not least when it comes to musical ones. Check out this cool-looking synth by Toby Hendricks, this geometric instrument by David Sharples, and this pyrite-disc-reading music player by Dmitry Morozov. Aren’t they all splendid? And the list goes on and on…

Which instrument do you play? The recorder? The ocarina? The jaw harp? Could you create an AI like Zack’s for it? Let us know in the comments below, and share your builds with us via social media.