Make a Mac Sing Songs

Nov 9, 2010 - 13 Comments

Make the Mac Sing

I know you’ve always thought to yourself, wouldn’t it be great if my Mac could see me songs? Or wouldn’t it be wonderful if I could make someone elses Mac sing songs? Well, you’re going to be thrilled to discover that, yes, your Mac can actually sing, thanks to the text-to-speech engine and the intonation of some of the built in voices bundled with Mac OS X.


Yes this is a bit of a goofy Mac trick, but it’s pretty amusing and has a lot of potential for fun.

How to Make a Mac Sing Songs

To make your Mac sing a few classic songs, you’ll need to use the Terminal.

• Launch the Terminal app (found in /Applications/Utilities/ or with Spotlight)

• Then type or or copy and paste the following commands into the Terminal, followed by the return key:

Make the Mac Sing “Hall of the Mountain King”

say -v Cellos "di di di di di di di di di di di di di di di di di di di di di di di di di di"

Make the Mac Sing “Funeral March”
say -v Bad News "di di di di di di di di di di di di di di di di di di di di di di di di di di di di di di di di"

I originally labeled this as “a Song You’ll Recognize But I Can’t Remember the Name Of (LOL)” from being unable remember the name of that one, but commenters informed us that it’s called Funeral March.

Make the Mac Sing “Pomp and Circumstance” (the graduation song)

say -v Good "di di di di di di di di di di di di di di di di di di di di di di di di di di di di"

Exporting the Singing Songs on Mac to a File

If you just can’t get enough of your newly harmonious Mac, you can export the songs as audio files that can be then used for any other purpose, like creating an iPhone ringtone or whatever else your heart desires. To export the song, use the following syntax:

say -v Cellos -o "CellosSong.m4a" "di di di di di di di di di di di di di di di di di di di di di di di di di di"

You may recognize the Cellos voice from the Droid sound effect trick and commercials.

Have fun with your singing Mac! You can also just make your Mac talk if you’re not much of a music lover.

.

Related articles:

Posted by: Paul Horowitz in Fun, Mac OS, Tips & Tricks

13 Comments

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  1. emre says:

    Bad news is the funeral march

  2. Oliver says:

    These are the same songs the voices use at times when announcing the time!
    Also does anyone know of a monotone Mac voice?

  3. […] nutzen auch verschiedene Instrumente und Stimmen. Ein kleiner Einblick darin ist hier zusehen: https://osxdaily.com/2010/11/09/make-your-mac-sing-songs/ und http://www.usingmac.com/2008/6/24/terminal-sings-songs. [5, […]

    • Grumpster says:

      I don’t understand people that see an article clearly written in English and all comments in English also and still feel the need to write in their own language, do they expect everyone to go and translate their sh*t?. It’s so common it’s getting annoying. Seriously, WTF?

  4. […] of the Terminal, using some cool voices you can even make your Mac sing you a song. If you’re after more, there’s a thread for […]

  5. Perry says:

    I suspect Apple used these tunes to give the voices the variation they need to sound more lifelike.

  6. Leigh says:

    OK, it works well. But I don’t understand how. Can someone explain?

  7. stefan says:

    let your mac sing any phrase, like the original text:

    say -v good “Land of hope and glory Mother of the free How shall we extol thee Who are born of thee”

  8. Jag says:

    Don’t write “News” on the Bad News one. It’ll say ‘News’ before it starts singing.

  9. MetalRufflez says:

    The First one is called In the Hall of the Mountain King: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Hall_of_the_Mountain_King

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