The missing half of music history | Gabriella Di Laccio

**Elise Hu** (0:04)
You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hu.
Who decides which voices survive? It's a question classical singer, Gabriella Di Laccio, never thought to ask until a few years ago. She was browsing a secondhand book market in London and found an encyclopedia listing 6,000 women composers from across the history of music. She had trained her whole life as a musician, yet she could name only 5

**Gabriella Di Laccio** (0:34)
I'm a professional musician. How is it possible that I spent my life training and performing without hearing about thousands of women who wrote beautiful music?

**Elise Hu** (0:47)
In this talk, Gabriella shares how that one encyclopedia led her to build a foundation that's now uncovered more than 18,000 women composers previously lost to history.
When she looked at how much of the music we regularly listen to was written by men versus women, the imbalance was staggering. But there's more. The AI models now learning to generate music are being trained on that same skewed history.

**Gabriella Di Laccio** (1:13)
The systems can only learn from the data available to them. But right now, that data is missing half of humanity's creativity.

**Elise Hu** (1:22)
Gabriella has an idea for how we might fix this before the silence becomes permanent. Along the way, she shares some of these long-lost voices, including one whose songs nearly didn't survive at all. That's coming up right after a short break.
And now, our TED Talk of the Day.

**Gabriella Di Laccio** (2:18)
It was written by Comtesa de Dia, a poet and composer from medieval Southern France. It is the only surviving melody written by a woman from that entire tradition.
So let me start with a question. Who decides which voices survive?
I never really thought about that until a few years ago, when I was working on a second-hand book market in London, and I found an encyclopedia that listed 6,000 women composers in the history of music. I could not believe it because at that time, I think I could name five. But as soon as I start looking to their names and listening to this incredible music, I kid you not, I will not shut up. Well, I haven't shut up, I'm hearing. And I just were sharing this music with everybody all the time. In fact, please allow me.

**Elise Hu** (3:11)
On the screen behind her is a slide with the image and name of 18th century Austrian composer Mariana Martinez, who wrote more than 70 compositions with works performed by Mozart.
Then when the music shifts, we see the image and name of Florence Price, who composed more than 300 works of music. She was the first African American woman to have a symphony performed by a major orchestra.

**Gabriella Di Laccio** (4:02)
I mean, can you believe that? Did you hear all the classical strings, the Afro-American dances mixed with the romantic music? Well, welcome to my husband's life in 2018
Now, my husband, he's a railway engineer, which means he's now the railway engineer who knows the most about women composers in the whole world. I know, it's not a very competitive field, but still. So one day, one day he said to me, look, it's very nice that you're playing this music by these women at breakfast for, I don't know, a year now, but you do understand that nothing is going to happen if you just tell me, I'm an engineer, so are you going to do something or what? And I was like, fair enough. So I did. I made a list of these incredible women, I put it online, and within months, women from all over the world, they start writing to me and they said, thank you so much for what you're doing. I'm a composer. Could you please add me to your list? And I tell you, this list continues to grow. It is now a foundation, and we are now uncovering over 18,000 women composers in the history of music.
Applause Now, this story makes absolutely no sense. I'm a professional musician. How is it possible that I spent my life training and performing without hearing about thousands of women who wrote beautiful music? Well, when I started doing my own research and I came across the data, then it became clear because it turns out that nearly 90% of the music we hear across genres is written by men. That's a very big gap. Can you all imagine all the amazing music we've been all missing all this time? But also that AI is now learning from that same silence.
On one platform only, more than 50,000 AI generated tracks are added every single day. The systems can only learn from the data available to them. But right now, that data is missing half of humanity's creativity. Now, I believe musicians should be writing music, not machines.