SHANGHAI, Sept. 8 — In Asia, virtual idols are singers like any other. So much so that some, like Luya, are now enrolling in music schools to perfect their skills – a sign that these futuristic pop stars are here to stay.
This year, the Shanghai Conservatory of Music is welcoming a new kind of student.
Her name is Luya, and she’s a virtual singer with a youthful appearance and pink hair. She comes straight from the studios of the Chinese company iFlytek, which specializes in artificial intelligence.
Luya is one of the robot musicians who are proving very successful in Asia, especially in China and Japan, where they have managed to build up large communities of fans.
Examples include Apoki, Amy, the girl band K/DA, and Saejin, a virtual idol who performs alongside “real” singers in the band Superkind.
Luya’s career is still in its infancy. That’s why she has decided to sign up to study in the music engineering department of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. A surprising step considering that this artist is, in reality, just a bunch of algorithms and lines of computer code.
According to iFlytek, Luya’s intentions are laudable.
“She hopes to receive more professional training at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music to better work in the music industry, produce more pleasing music and pursue new musical possibilities,” the company told the South China Morning Post.
With this in mind, Luya has also joined the conservatory’s research and development programme for artificial intelligence-assisted music creation.
“She will explore different types of musical styles and will create novel music composition methods by incorporating AI technology,” Yu Yang, one of the department’s professors, told the Chinese daily.
Surprising as it may seem, this is not the first time the Shanghai Conservatory of Music has admitted a student who is not made of flesh and blood. Xiaoice, Microsoft’s conversational artificial intelligence programme, has previously taken classes there.
According to the bot’s teachers, Xiaoice was a diligent student whose contributions were greatly appreciated by classmates. As such, the bot successfully graduated from the school in 2020. – ETX Studio
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