What is the role of AI in songwriting?

Let's explore the role of AI in songwriting and develop AI literacy skills

Are you a student completing the workshop?

Ask the Songwriter Bot to create song lyrics
If your class is using the workbook, open the Student Workbook and either download or make a local copy that you can edit
Visit the Indigenous Role Model Story Gallery to find a story to tell through your song

Are you a teacher exploring or preparing to deliver the workshop?

Scroll down to find lesson details and teacher resources

Lesson Overview

In this lesson, students explore the role of AI in the songwriting process and develop AI literacy skills. Skills learned are based on AI literacy skills defined in the UNESCO AI Competency Framework for students.

The lesson is split into two sections:

Songwriting. In this section students will: Learn privacy best practices when using generative AI; Learn limitations of generative AI such as hallucinations and bias. Compose a 2-4 line chorus for a song about an Indigenous role model of their choice without using AI.
Evaluate AI Songwriting. In this section students will: Learn how to write a prompt for generative AI; Learn and reflect on plagiarism and copyright with respect to AI; Listen to the opinions of an Indigenous songwriter on AI as a songwriting tool; Generate lyrics for a song about their selected Indigenous role model and compare the generated lyrics to the lyrics they composed without AI; Learn about plagiarism and reflect on appropriate use of AI for schoolwork.

Recommended grades: 6+

Lesson Duration

Standard lesson duration: 45 minutes. Do not use the student workbook, instead complete all activities as group activities and discussions. Use the provided highlights and lyrics about Indigenous Role Model Melissa Haney for your song lyrics.
Add Independent research and learning: 90 minutes. Provides time for students to explore the Indigenous Role model gallery and select a role model of their choice as a subject for song lyrics and time to write their own song lyrics without using AI to compare to generate lyrics.
Research and go deeper on AI topics of interest: 90+ minutes. Appendices are provided with materials that can be used to go deeper on how AI makes mistakes, whether AI can replace a songwriter, School AI policies, legal and ethical aspects of AI in songwriting

The Teacher Guide suggests options to extend or shorten specific discussions and activities based on your learning goals.

Teacher Resources

Slides - Slides with suggested instructor dialogue and cues in the slide notes.
Songwriter Bot - Generative AI tool used in the lesson to generate song lyrics.
Vocabulary - List of terms introduced in the workshop
Teacher Guide - Course overview with instructor notes.
Student Workbook - Digital workbook containing reference materials and activities for students to support learning. Students will need to download or make a copy of this resource to edit the workbook.
Indigenous Role Model Story Gallery - A selection of stories about Indigenous Role Models that can be used as inspiration for the songwriting activities.
Curriculum mapping - List of curriculum requirements met by the What is the role of AI in art lesson.
Songwriter Bot Technical Specifications page - Details on models and services used, privacy policies, and measures in place to protect students to support any school or school district review and approval processes

Technical Requirements

NOTE: Students and teachers do not need to create any accounts to complete the lesson

The following hardware or software is required to complete the lesson:

Desktop computer, laptop computer, or Chromebook
Internet connection
Keyboard and a mouse or trackpad

Songwriter Bot

During this lesson students use the Songwriter Bot to access generative AI. The Songwriter Bot is accessed through a web browser. The Songwriter Bot accepts prompts from the student or teacher and generates song lyrics based on the prompt.

If your school district has an approval process for technical or AI tools, refer the approval team to the Songwriter Bot Technical Specifications page which provides details on the services used to facilitate the approval process.

The Songwriter Bot is built on the AWS Bedrock service and the Anthropic Claude Large Language Model. These services do not store prompts entered by the user or the generated output. More details on the privacy policy of both services can be found on the Songwriter Bot Technical Specifications page.

The Songwriter Bot is configured to filter harmful content and toxic model responses using Amazon Bedrock Guardrails. More details can be found on the Songwriter Bot Technical Specifications page.

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