| Photo courtesy of Garrett Eckl |
| By Prince Omoruyi The Poke Press How can a computer turn written words into a song? Garrett Eckl, assistant professor of music production at McNeese State University, is exploring that question and bringing his research to an international audience. Eckl will present “Real-Time Song Generation: A Csound API Case Study” at the 2026 International Csound Conference in Sicily, Italy, Oct. 20-22. Developed with former colleagues, the paper examines how computational music theory and Csound, an audio programming language, can be used to write and produce songs in near real time. The work builds on Eckl’s experience developing music technology. He developed the RIFFIT Reader and SongR applications, which have been used to generate more than 1,000,000 custom songs in real time. The research also addresses questions behind the growing popularity of automatically generated music and the materials used to create it. Eckl and his colleagues explore approaches that do not rely on copyrighted musical works, while considering how the technology could support education. That connection to learning will carry into the classroom this spring where students in the audio programming course, MPRD 370, will explore the topic through coursework that brings together music composition and computer science. Eckl has taught at McNeese since August 2023 and coordinates the music production concentration in the W.A. and Dorothy Hanna Department of Performing Arts. He holds a Master of Music in computer music from the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University and a bachelor’s degree in music recording technology and audio design from San Diego State University. For Eckl, the conference is also a chance to introduce colleagues from around the world to McNeese’s music production program, now in its second year. As the program grows, he hopes students will discover possibilities they may not have considered from programming audio to creating music for video games. “There’s so many other areas where music and technology meet,” Eckl said. |
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