Music Video: Measure of Glory

In exploring this new world of AI-generated music, I sometimes like to just see what the technology can do. So I told Sonauto simply to come up with a song about miniature wargaming!

I used the mode in which the AI simultaneously comes up with title, lyrics and tune.

It came up with these lyrics:

Measure of Glory

Intro

March
Left right
Left right

Chorus

Plastic ranks aligned in rows
Facing down the silent foes
Measure the distance with the tape
Six inches wide to find escape
Line of sight is locked and true
Painting what we mean to do

Verse 1

Bases bite the green terrain
Shedding the coats of dry-brush stain
Tiny muskets gripped in grey
Ten thousand men in still array

Pre-Chorus

Watch the flank
Watch the fire
Watch the world sink in the mire

Chorus

Plastic ranks aligned in rows
Facing down the silent foes
Measure the distance with the tape
Six inches wide to find escape
Line of sight is locked and true
Painting what we mean to do

Verse 2

Rattle of the plastic shells
Numbers telling tales of hells
General at the table edge
Forging a brutal winning pledge

Pre-Chorus

Hold the line
Hold the breath
Hold the dice for life or death

Chorus

Plastic ranks aligned in rows
Facing down the silent foes
Measure the distance with the tape
Six inches wide to find escape
Line of sight is locked and true
Painting what we mean to do

Bridge

Scatter plot on a velvet map
Caught in a 2D ambush trap
Roll for the victory
Roll for the history
Roll for the soul of the glass display case

Chorus

Plastic ranks aligned in rows
Facing down the silent foes
Measure the distance with the tape
Six inches wide to find escape
Line of sight is locked and true
Painting what we mean to do

Note how Sonauto produces 'slimmer' lyrics than Gemini, which is what I usually use for generating lyrics. The problem with Sonauto is that you can't interact with it; you either accept the lyrics, hit the button and try again, or extract the lyrics and edit by hand. In this case, I accepted the lyrics.

Gaming Notes

"Plastic ranks aligned in rows"

I've noticed AI assumes all miniatures are plastic.

"Measure the distance with the tape"

I was surprised the AI knew that gamers use measuring tapes in a game.

"Scatter plot on a velvet map"

Velvet? Velvet???

"Caught in a 2D ambush trap"

Wouldn't it be 3D?

"Roll for the soul of the glass display case"

Wow, AI made a joke?

Making the Music

Sonauto, wrote its own prompt:

Deep male voice, Cinematic orchestral military march, grand and epic, heavy brass fanfares, driving marching snare, suspenseful string staccato, high-stakes atmosphere, 130 BPM, professional production.

Amusingly, it then ignored most of that, and simply used the musical tag '2020s'.

The AI generated a pair of results. One was flawed, but the other one was good.

Making the Video

Nano Banana came up with art based on the lyrics:

I was again surprised that Nano Banana had a clue about miniature wargaming. I then asked another AI, Flux Klein, to create this version:

I liked this version, but then I thought that for a heavy metal song, a different style was called for:

Caption files were created for English, French, German, Spanish and Tagalog.

The final step was to combine the music with titles, using ClipChamp:

I've posted the video as a reel on the TMP Facebook page. This one has had a mixed reaction, getting an average amount of views, but more people watched all the way to the end. 36% of the views have been from outside the wargaming community, and it was popular in the 25-44 age demographic.