New children’s songs developed with the help of Gemini AI and Suno have recently been added to the “Shadow Light Project.” They demonstrate how teachers can easily create customized songs for everyday school life—whether it’s a personalized birthday song for a child in the class or motivational songs based on current lesson topics, such as the positions of the planets. The songs can be tailored very specifically to the needs of a particular class by, for example, incorporating the children’s names, their own school building, or local learning environments.

But AI-generated music could go much further in the classroom by encouraging students to take an active role and bring their own ideas to life through music. In this context, the AI environment itself becomes the subject of learning. A possible workflow: First, song lyrics are drafted very generally using just a few keywords in ChatGPT or Gemini. The students then collaboratively discuss and revise these drafts until they are ready to present the finished song.

More exciting options for classroom use:

• Creative Writing: Composing your own analog song lyrics and optimizing them using AI (e.g., rhyme and rhythm checks).
• Aesthetic Judgment: A Discussion of the Quality of AI-Generated Texts and Compositions. How far do these “works” of artificial intelligence still fall short of professional music productions? In what ways do they come across as clichéd?
• Background Information: A critical examination of the large LLM language models that power AI-generated texts (datasets, copyright, bias).
• Song Contest: Assigning a specific theme as a contest challenge to find the best or most original song in the class.
• Musical Theme: Deliberate experimentation with musical styles: Creating songs through singing or playing one's own instruments to have a greater influence on the musical accompaniment of songs.

Finally, a legal note: When students create their own songs using Suno or Udio, the issue of usage rights in the classroom must not be overlooked. In the free versions of these tools, the rights to the songs often belong to the platforms, and the songs may not be used commercially. For the children’s and school songs printed here, the rights belong to Shadow Light Project.