Darling’s last stage performance was two years ago. By that time, he had already lost the ability to stand and play his instruments and struggled to sing or speak. But recently, he was able to recreate his lost voice using an AI tool trained on snippets of old audio recordings. Another AI tool enabled them to use this “voice clone” to create new songs. Darling is able to make music again.
“Sadly, I have lost the ability to sing and play my instruments,” Darling said while using her voice clone on stage at the event in London on Wednesday. “Despite this, most of my time these days is spent creating and producing my own music. Doing so feels more important to me now than ever.”
lose a voice
Darling says he has been a musician and composer since he was about 14 years old. “I learned to play bass guitar, acoustic guitar, piano, melodica, mandolin and tenor banjo,” he said in the program. “However, my greatest love was singing.”
Cocking says he met bandmate Nick Cocking 10 years ago, when they were university students. Darling joined Cocking’s Irish folk organization, cely house bandShortly after, and their first concert together took place in April 2014. Darling, who joined the band as a vocalist and guitarist, “elevated the musicianship of the band”, says Cocking.
Courtesy of Nick Cocking
But a few years ago, Cocking and his other bandmates began to notice changes in Darling. Cocking says, he became clumsy. He recalls one night when the band had to tour around Cardiff city in the rain: “He was just slipping and falling, tripping over floor slabs and things like that.”
They didn’t think much of it at the time, but Darling’s symptoms continued to worsen. The disease first affected his legs and in August 2023, he was required to sit during performances. Then he started losing the use of his hands. “Eventually he couldn’t play guitar or banjo,” says Cocking.
Cocking says that by April 2024, Darling was having difficulty talking and breathing at the same time. For that performance, the band took Darling on stage. “He called me the next day and said he couldn’t do it anymore,” says Cocking. “By June 2024, it is completed.” This was the last time the band performed together.
recreating a voice
Darling was put in touch with a speech therapist who raised the possibility of “banking” her voice. People who are losing the ability to speak may choose to record themselves speaking and use those recordings to create speech sounds that can be activated with typed text, either by hand or perhaps using a device controlled by eye movements.
