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AI generated music

That’s how I feel.

I pay attention to new AI stuff to some degree, seeing the latest advances in video and AI art. The midjourney subreddit can display some mind bogging results.

It’s a very strange, empty experience, seeing impressive AI art. For me whenever I experience art with visual or musical it is the artist that I’m appreciating. Every thrill relates to the appreciation that someone was skilled enough to create it.

With AI art there is no one to appreciate. It’s like a black hole belching out finished art. I feel the ground removed beneath my feet as I try to figure out how to appreciate it.
At a much more local level, a couple of times recently when out to dinner with family, AI tinkling quasi jazz piano noodling provided the ambience. I didn’t necessarily expect a live pianist playing, but this hurts in a couple of ways: no composer receives royalties, no performer earns a piddling, even through tips, and people’s emotions are being stroked as if by a lurid and amoral electro-mechanical device. The restaurants save on ASCAP-BMI licensing fees and everyone pays with their souls.
 
Technology continues its challenge to individual creativity. The AI hype cycle is on the down slope now as it has been exposed as having hit a wall. The current technology has demonstrated limitations that can't be overcome with additional training no matter how much data is pumped into it. However, as it stands, there's still plenty of scope to use AI in ways that impress and this is just one of them. What's missing in the output of the music generation systems is any sort of true human variation or individual spark. Even if you get it to emulate Bob Dylan, it won't be able to add any quirk or defect that a real artist would inevitably produce either on purpose or by accident. It suffers from being too perfect and as more of this material is generated, it's flat, uniform nature will form noticeable patterns. A reasonably seasoned listener will just go "oh, that's AI" and quickly dismiss it as its value is no different to a plumbing flyer stuffed in your letter box.

Music is powerful because it has human connection built into it. We like certain styles, artists, composers, or genres based on personal preferences and these preferences are as important to us as our opinions. The advent of a technology where a person who has no ability to produce music or play an instrument being able to write lyrics and have those "performed" by a machine is certainly novel but its not going to make you world famous. I like the comparison of this to the assertion that photography would wipe out artists and paintings. This did not happen because as humans, we appreciate the skill and personal expression of a painting that it represents, the same will be true of AI generated music. Sure it may supplant composers and musicians in some facets of media but those areas weren't exactly paying big for artists. Not many trained musicians want to add lift music to their portfolio of work for example.
 
Technology continues its challenge to individual creativity. The AI hype cycle is on the down slope now as it has been exposed as having hit a wall. The current technology has demonstrated limitations that can't be overcome with additional training no matter how much data is pumped into it. However, as it stands, there's still plenty of scope to use AI in ways that impress and this is just one of them. What's missing in the output of the music generation systems is any sort of true human variation or individual spark. Even if you get it to emulate Bob Dylan, it won't be able to add any quirk or defect that a real artist would inevitably produce either on purpose or by accident. It suffers from being too perfect and as more of this material is generated, it's flat, uniform nature will form noticeable patterns. A reasonably seasoned listener will just go "oh, that's AI" and quickly dismiss it as its value is no different to a plumbing flyer stuffed in your letter box.

Music is powerful because it has human connection built into it. We like certain styles, artists, composers, or genres based on personal preferences and these preferences are as important to us as our opinions. The advent of a technology where a person who has no ability to produce music or play an instrument being able to write lyrics and have those "performed" by a machine is certainly novel but its not going to make you world famous. I like the comparison of this to the assertion that photography would wipe out artists and paintings. This did not happen because as humans, we appreciate the skill and personal expression of a painting that it represents, the same will be true of AI generated music. Sure it may supplant composers and musicians in some facets of media but those areas weren't exactly paying big for artists. Not many trained musicians want to add lift music to their portfolio of work for example.
Agreed, the human connection to art and music will always exist because they are a natural form of expression. The big monetary payoff is an ambition for some but not all. Many trained musicians contribute to the creation of lift music even though this is a type of work that has been significantly whittled down by technology through the years. Many big composers benefit from their songs being arranged for lift, or supermarket muzak.
To diminish the lower end of paying gigs as unimportant is to not realize that those jobs actually do provide many working musicians with a livelihood. Progress is progress and as always, for the truly dedicated, a life in music will be possible for those who can ferret out opportunities. After all, Andy Warhol figured out how to combine photography within the business of fine art portraitures.
 
What's missing in the output of the music generation systems is any sort of true human variation or individual spark. Even if you get it to emulate Bob Dylan, it won't be able to add any quirk or defect that a real artist would inevitably produce either on purpose or by accident. It suffers from being too perfect and as more of this material is generated, it's flat, uniform nature will form noticeable patterns. A reasonably seasoned listener will just go "oh, that's AI" and quickly dismiss it as its value is no different to a plumbing flyer stuffed in your letter box.
Counterpoint to that: I do not find that problem (lack of variation, unifortmity) with AI-generated music. It doesn't learn music theory, recording best practices, then Bob Dylan and produce a sterile Bob Dylan clone. It just learns the waveforms and the frequency and time components. Teach it with off-key singing here and there, it's going to produce off-key singing here and there.

But more realistically, it get taught with a huge variety of music, with with reinforcement to know how to classify it and figure out what traits make a certain style and what what part is singing and what classifies a male and female singer, and such, what tempo is, etc. I've had it—without me specifying—generate sections with accelerating tempo, then dropping back, and using that scheme as an element in the music. So, it will know what you mean by Bob Dylan (though you typically need to describe a style that is like Bob Dylan, and it's blocked from calling or recognizing it as Bob Dylan). Also, I've given it my own completed music and had it reimagine it in made different results. Unexpected things like having the song seemingly end, in full force...then quietly come back in and develop a variation on a theme...

Counter to being too perfect, a lot of the output can be a little rough, like a group of capable musicians working out a idea on the fly, that a person might want to refine and edit before it's a completed song.

Again, my interest is more along the "assistance" use of AI, but ultimately I'd love to have it be a producer that could make suggestions of perhaps several different directions for development. Most of the biggest artists rely on that, and have for a long time. Michael Jackson would come in beat-boxing and idea vocally, and others would take it from there. But there are also capable musicians that benefit from the right producer. Billy Joel struggled, even with hits, until he worked with Phil Ramone, who was able to convey more of the artist in the recordings. And of course the Beatles and George Martin were a perfect match—they probably would not have had the breadth of style without him.

Finally, most of the music people hear are borrowed or copied from someone else, have been for a long time. Surfin' USA is a Chuck Berry song (Sweet Little Sixteen) with the lyrics changed. Dazed and Confused was just a stolen song entirely (Jake Holmes). Bach's Air on a G String is a vital component of A Whiter Shade of Pale. Sowing the Seeds of Love by Tears For Fears doesn't copy a particular song, but tried to get as close to the Beatles in general as it can.

But I agree in general that it doesn't replace true inspiration, it just tries to sound like true inspiration by listening to true inspiration (at some point it will be difficult to differentiate, though). It's also fed with a lot of routine boring music, because people buy routine, boring music. Younger listeners and those less sophisticated older one want to hear songs that. essentially, they've heard before. They don't want to be challenged.

By "challenged", I mean...I grew up playing classical piano, and was eventually drawn to progressive rock. Offhand, a single that I liked from the first verse was Selling England by the Pound, and it was by very first listen to Genesis—a friend had recommended the album. But when I bought The Power and the Glory, by Gentle giant, I had their albums and knew what to expect, and when I played the first song, Proclamation, I knew right away it would take several listens before it sounded good. It was like eating a new food that's kind of bitter tasting, but knowing that it will be one of your favorites when you get used to it (and in fact, it's one of the most infectious songs of ALL TIME).

But some people like Big Macs, and are only happy with Big Macs. I think AI will keep them happy. I think it can also help humans with true inspiration realize their ideas, but at the same time I can see it replacing grocery store music with ease. And even background jazz while dining. And more.
 
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