So many things to unpack about what is happening and what will happen and what its impact will be...
I've played with Suno lately, on a month's subscription. I don't have it generate lyrics, I supply mine
—from songs I've already written and recorded—and it's fascinating to hear how it "imagines" them. Both in different styles and in different takes.
"Like" this post if you want me to post a few highlights. I'm hesitant, as my words are involved, but if enough people want to know I could be swayed that it's helpful.
The one thing I feel is that when I go to a store and hear music playing overhead, I think, "This could be replaced, right now, with AI generated songs churned out ad infinitum, an no one would know the difference." Of course, that's partly because stores play pretty generic and non-challenging stuff that known to be likable. And AI is good at that.
But some of what it generates is pretty compelling. Sometime the whole thing (it kicks out two-minute pieces—you can have it extend them later) is interesting, but sometimes it's just interesting how it treated a certain phrase, or the chorus.
Personally, I've like it to sing my song over my music, and see how it phrases the lyrics that I might not have thought of.
I've also worked this week with ACE Studio, taking my singing and breaking it down into lyrics, notes, and inflections. I'm not interested in replacing my singing, which is what it's focussed on, but it's interesting nonetheless. Maybe though, I might do something like add a female harmony signing along with me on one of my songs.
But even if you don't like the idea of AI generation, where would or could you draw the line? Personally, I'd love having an AI producer or vocal coach that could listen to my song and say, "Here are a couple of other ways you could treat the chorus", and have it generate the alternate versions for me to evaluate. Or, "Have you considered not bringing in the drums until the pre-chorus build?"
But then, the next step is generating tracks, individual instruments as needed. I'm not a drummer, but enough that I can either play my V-drums kit and edit manually, or mouse in the beat. Or, I can send it to my friend to play the drums however he wants, which has the benefit of getting a different point of view involved. I could do it similarly on Fiverr. But at that point, why not give the song to an AI drummer, and either request a style, have it infer style, or just have it give 2-3 variations to choose from? I think drums are low hanging fruit for AI, with no pitch and harmonies involved. (I should check the web, I'd be surprised if this isn't already a thing.) Plugins and even DAWs like Logic have had "intelligent" virtual dummers for years, but with AI it could listen to the music it's drumming to and make better choices.
BTW, think of the serendipity that could come from being able to have AI audition your song in different styles? "Roxanne" was conceived by Sting in a bossanova style, Copeland suggested tango, Summers played it in straight four and Copeland switched it up to a reggae fell and Sting changed where the bass notes landed, accordingly. The Police were a punk band (that detested much of the punk habits) till then—would they have had as much success if they hadn't hit upon something else?
There are so many level this could be taken. Frankly, popular music is already dominated by writers who know the formula for mass approval and sell their services to the elite. If you say yes, that why it all sucks, I agree. But that's why I don't think AI is the doom of the music industry. Yes, it will impact earnings capabilities by musicians. But realistically, it's just an extension of what we have now, where musics complain they aren't paid fairly for their music. On streaming services. And a large part of that is there is so much competition, because this isn't the '70s, where you had to be signed by a big-money record label. Today, anyone can create and publish with a laptop. I think it's an unrealistic expectation, today, to expect a good living from making music.
It will also be an enabler. I write songs I want to give away—no pretensions on making money at my age. But for the music I write, I'd want to make them available as music videos. I don't have the budget to do that for free. But with the assistance of AI for the video, maybe I can.
But maybe...gee, a few years down the road when fewer humans can play anymore...maybe the local bar bands with be living the highlife, when people value real live humans playing in front of them more than what they can stream.
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