Hey All,

Writing music can be a full time endeavor. Having really good music tools, like A.I. tools can be extremely helpful. It’s really hard to get players to drive over to my house, even though I have a small studio with all the amps and instruments including a drum kit for anyone to use while we work on tunes. It’s either too much traffic or gas is too expensive or an old favorite, “I am working that day and/or have rehearsal again”. I have had limited success with live playing over the internet, while it does work, can be frustrating with the lag. You need headphones on all the time. Also sending raw wav files to other musicians works after a fashion. Getting a wav file back and sliding it into place takes a bit of work. It’s hard to produce the sounds and parts you want over the internet as well.

Which is one reason I have been embracing A.I.more and more. Producing a tune and adding other players via AI is a lot simpler then actually playing with one. I miss the live interaction with another player, no doubt, but not the excuses “uh, my wife said be home by 8p or else” and “gotta get up at 6a tomorrow” among the many legitimate explanations offered. With AI, I upload my tune, finished or not, tell the interpreter things I would like to try, like, a sax solo instead of guitar, an organ pad instead of strings, a heavy syncopated drum beat with congas on the side. It’s still my tune but with different session players. And no meal breaks during a brainstorm of activity. 

I am embracing this more and more, leaving the metatags inside the tunes saying “made with this AI software” although I am going to start changing that to: “Guest musicians AI” because the tune is mine. Without my input, which even the copyright office says the tune is not a human made tune. But when the majority of the tune is created by the musican/writer, you can then copyright. I’ve noticed that some musicians remove any reference to songs they have created with AI. Why? If it was their song instead of using other musicians they used a software one to help finish and produce the song.

TO get a song right with AI as a partner can also be very demanding. Arranging parts, selecting instruments, designing the flow, mixing, mastering, rewriting can still take days, sometimes months before it sounds and feels right. Sometimes I teach a part to the AI, well rarely cause the AI is usually amazing, and sometimes the AI shows me where the direction should be. I cringe when someone who has never held a instrument in their hands using it to create a song then passing it off as their creation. Yes, without them entering the intitial idea there would be no song. Doesn’t make them a songwriter. When a person uses AI to write a novel by just saying “make a book about a boy and his cat” and out pops 150 page short novel, did that person write it? Bigger questions then my tiny brain can handle at the moment.

However, AI assist is amazing! That same novel can be mostly written with the AI input delegated to helping with a subplot etc. Paragraph formating, story continuity. The same with music. If I write a song, and use AI as another musician, I become the producer of that song as well. I recently discovered cloning of my voice. Boy is that a blessing. Mostly for the listener, you. Saving lots of ears. Plus it really helps to further develop the production and direction of the tune.

I could almost write a book talking about this. But really, it all comes down to the listener. Is the tune liked? Does the person care that AI played the piano and sax? Did the person care when they knew it was recorded by the all the musicians in the band? Sometimes, I notice a sterile lifeless jumble of sounds when AI is involved. More often now, it scares me how soulful singing and parts played by the AI sound to me.  

For now, I am doing both. Playing and recording live parts by me. Loading songs to be helped along by AI that I would likely never get too.

Learning along the way,

Cheers

ceej