Songs of love writes personalized music for children – but can AI wear melody? : NPR

Logan Becker loves her song – She was written just for him. Logan has a rare connective tissue disorder, and in 2020, when he was 9 years old, he received his personalized and optimistic anthem from the Songs of Love Foundation. For almost 30 years, the non -profit organization has worked with a deep bench of professional musicians to produce more than 46,000 tailor -made songs for children with terminal or serious diseases. “It gives me the impression that I am not the only one to cross this – and I integrate myself,” says Logan in a video he made with his mother.

Music has long been appreciated for its therapeutic effects. A 2024 study of the journal Palliative medicine concludes: “Musicotherapy offers unique advantages to this pediatric population, in particular to support the well-being of children and the family”.

Although Songs of Love is not an organization of music therapy – music therapy is an accredited health profession, is authorized in many states and requires a diploma in music and specialized training in fields such as psychology, education and medicine – the work of the non -profit organization producing personalized songs for children with huge challenges offers some of the same advantages.

Logan Becker poses with his “Song of Love” in 2020.

Kimberly Becker

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Kimberly Becker

“A song is a municipal cultural product that says that you are not alone,” said Kenneth Aigen, director of the New York University music therapy. “And this idea of the universality that someone could feel to have a written song about them, I think, maybe quite comforting. A song with biographical elements says that you are seen and that you are heard by other human beings.”

Seeking to rely on this positive mission, the Songs of Love Foundation now wants to reach elderly people with a loss of memory, in addition to serving sick children. “My mother had Alzheimer’s disease, so it’s very personal for me,” said the founder and president of the Foundation of L’Amour des Songs, John Beltzer, in an interview with NPR.

The problem, said Beltzer, is how to engage a population imbued with music from a bygone era, like Big Band, Doo-Wop and Swing. “There was no way that we could have found enough composers to be able to create these pieces in an authentic way,” said Beltzer.

He therefore contacted the Suno AI musical platform to get help, and the company responded by giving songs to love contributors free access to its musical creation tools.

“We will have songwriters who will take a gross recording of themselves and use our tool to transform it into a well-produced piece,” said Suno CEO Mikey Shulman. “We will have others who need the String section for the refrain.”

Embrace new technologies

The embrace of the artificial intelligence of Songs of Love Foundation illustrates its broader interest in new technologies. The non-profit organization is asking for cryptocurrency donations and has created videos using Snapchat filters featuring unrealistic similarities of celebrities such as Bruce Springsteen and Paul McCartney appearing, falsely, to approve the non-profit body. (The non -profit organization also has what seems to be real endorsements and contributions from celebrity songs, notably actor Paul Dano and the leader of Van Halen, David Lee Roth.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PyAP1O5XB4

Its use of the AI for musical production presents a departure for the foundation from a process which has been concentrated until recently on more traditional song methods-that is to say that a songwriter composes a song (perhaps using certain technologies such as keyboards, drums and mixers) and then creates a recording of themselves or another human being by playing and singing.

However, now and in his pre-Ai days, love tracks songs always start with the same process: the child or a caregiver such as a parent fills a form of personal details such as the children’s hobbies, the names of family members, friends and pets, favorite foods, etc. Songs of Love then allocates a singer-songwriter from his list with the appropriate musical skills to create a personalized song for the child according to the form of admission.

“Maybe they have a blue bicycle. Maybe they have a aunt Mary or an uncle Charlie. And they like to go out in the courtyard and play baseball. It’s their world,” said the longtime composer of love songs Thomas Jones, one of the 200 musicians working with the Foundation. “And I write and try to splash this world to them to assert themselves.”

The singer-songwriter Thomas Jones said he had written “thousands” of songs for the Songs of Love Foundation.

Glenda Kaufman

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Glenda Kaufman

Songs of Love, which retains copyright on all songs, used to provide a small allowance to composers for their contributions. Beltzer said that the decision to expand the Foundation with AI to serve both the elderly and the children means that the creation of songs will now become a voluntary activity, as was the case during the first days of Love.

“We want us to be a for -lucrative company that raised funds,” said Beltzer. “But in the future, we will count on volunteers.”

Jones said despite everything, he loves the volunteer of his time to write songs for people in need. “Valid my life,” said the singer-songwriter. “It makes the world better.”

Jones has used Suno’s tools a lot in recent times to create her songs of love pieces. He said he felt the same feeling of satisfaction when composing a song with AI as he does not do. “For me, it’s just another way to express themselves,” said Jones. “It’s a box of pencils.”

AI connection challenges

But for others, it’s different.

AI companies, including Suno, are currently involved in prosecution for having allegedly trained their linguistic models on the work of musicians without authorization. (When asked for the impact of the legal proceedings against his business on his work with Songs of Love, the CEO of Suno, Shulman, said: “This is a rapidly evolving and somewhat ambiguous law.”).

Some other non-profit organizations working in the “Music As Medicine” space are wary of the use of AI in their work, both for the potential dangers of the copyright that it presents and also because of the risk that it could erode the crucial human link between the songwriters and those at risk that they serve.

“As we grew up, we have realized that the value of our programming is in fact in fact in depth of relations,” said Dan Rubins, co-founder and executive director of Hear Your Song, a non-profit organization of composition that also works with young people with serious illnesses. “We never want to put an AI tool in the midst of this relationship, because it is this connection that can have the most impact on the well-being of a child and the sense of self and self-expression.”

Some songs of love composers have similar doubts.

“Each of my songs is over, one at a time, the old -fashioned way,” said Ross Orenstein. The singer-songwriter said that he had created around 600 songs for love songs over the years, but recently wanted to change things. So he started working with Sing Me A Story, another group of children’s song compositions. He said he always values the work he has done for love songs. “It was an excellent relationship,” said Orenstein.

However, the composer is not a fan of the idea of using AI to create songs for sick children. “It sterilizes the process,” said Orenstein. “You lose a human touch.”

Sangeeta Swamy, music therapist of the Faculty of California Institute of Integral Studies, agrees. “There is a relationship between the singer -songwriter and the patient – energetically and, you could even say, spiritually. They try to connect,” said Swamy. “The songs generated by AI feel different for me. They miss this connective human element.”

The Songs of Love Foundation said that it always hosts the contributions of musicians who wish to create songs in a more traditional way.