AI again!

[Ronald Drysdale]

What can happen if you turn the power of AI loose on traditional Scottish folk songs, Ballads, Poetry etc?

I had a few hours spare, so I thought I would experiment with an update/remix of the poem "The Lads of Wamphrey" by Walter Scott into rock ballad style music.

The AI I used was Suno, online.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUTS2jHA3H0

Lads of Wamphray historical notes:

This folk-poem, celebrates a bloody skirmish between the Scottish Maxwell and Johnstone clans that took place at Biddes-burn in 1593

The lads of Wamphray of the title are Johnstones and they are in a raiding relationship with the Crichtons.
The Johnstones’ leader, the Galliard, goes to Nithsdale to steal the dun horse of the Crichtons’ leader, Simmy of the Side.
He mistakenly takes a blind horse instead of the dun one and, when he rides away, the Crichtons overtake and capture him, along with his only companion, Willie o’ the Kirkhill.
Although the Galliard offers a ransom, the Crichtons hang him. Willie returns to Wamphray and brings a band of riders back to Nithsdale where they steal some of the Crichtons’ cattle.
The Crichtons attack them and they fight furiously for a time, with the Johnstones eventually gaining the upper hand.
Willie proclaims that they have avenged the Galliard and that he himself has killed five opponents, and the Johnstones triumphantly drive the cattle home to Wamphray.

The words in the poem were recorded in 1791 by Robert Riddell and modified by Sir Walter Scott in 1806 in his publication
- "Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border"

https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/12742/pg12742-images.html

Note ~ It is possible that there were a few Drysdales amongst the 15 Crichton men that were killed.

Best regards

[Ronald Drysdale]

Hi William, 

You are right about the AI & its pronounciation of Scottish names and words, you can try and get around this problem by writing the names etc in the song phonetically - but that's presuming you actually know yourself what these old scots words are meant to sound like!

When the Suno AI model executes a job it always delivers 2 results. This is the other example - more rock than ballad ~ it's just about as good as the first one, but with a few more slightly mangled words.

https://youtu.be/SBDKexJhKNw

Merry Xmas & a happy new to you!

[William Douglas]

AI cannot cope with Scottish Names! Not yet, anyway. But this is really good!
Well done.