Using AI as a songwriting tool

I’m not a fan of purity Olympics or authenticity business or blues police stuff or whatever when it comes to music. Thieving and remixing and juxtaposition are all fair game. I do think that the big perils with AI are that it’s a black box and it’s trained on what already is and what already is acceptable and it’s the handmaiden of heinous borelords and money fucks.

A lot of great art is born of idiosyncratic obsession or someone mixing pickles and ice cream or people learning the rules to break them.

So if something shockingly new or made from unexpected combinations—think Ulysses or cubism or the Velvet Underground or Twin Peaks—already exists then AI can clone it and make a pastiche. But I think it’s harder to imagine AI coming up with “All Tomorrow’s Parties” or Who Killed Laura Palmer without the preexisting template.

Which is fine if you’re just generating “content” — advertisements, silly gags, pointless shit for the internet so you can read VPN ads and implore people to subscribe to your Patreon/Substack.

But if you’re trying to say something about what if feels like to be alive or trying to make sense of something or trying to get a notion out of your head…well I don’t think the robot can help you. I mean, I don’t think AI could imagine a Tom Waits or a Joni Mitchell or a Bob Dylan or a Beatles or even a Bay City Rollers without the originals to clone. I mean, AI could probably do a Greta Van Fleet…which tracks because robots are evil.
 
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It takes so damn long for infinite monkeys to come up with something decent. At least with AI, you can reach mediocre fairly quick.
 
rhino said:
What is art? What does it mean to be human? What is intellectual property or is there such a thing? Does any of it matter?
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The AI discussion we had in my songwriting group drove me to realize that if there isn't a human on the other end of the song who's trying to make a connection with me, I'm not really interested. Like, I love the macaroni art my kid made because he made it. I wouldn't buy macaroni art that was assembled in a factory.
 
Chicken Man said:
The AI discussion we had in my songwriting group drove me to realize that if there isn't a human on the other end of the song who's trying to make a connection with me, I'm not really interested. Like, I love the macaroni art my kid made because he made it. I wouldn't buy macaroni art that was assembled in a factory.
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Agreed.

I think the difference in how it’s used.
Mystixboi’s example was to help fill in a blank.

Also, the few times I’ve used AI for anything, I’ve always had to tweak the results - for accuracy, for brevity, to make it more like me, whatever.
That’s the human factor, in control, just using the output of a tool to help move things along… and it started with a human idea, and a prompt had to be created to get results from the tool.

Again, I am against total AI “creation”, but as a tool to get over a hump with something, I’m in. There’s still enough human control, in my opinion.
Also, I am not one to employ hallucinogens. So, I need AI to do the hallucinating for me.
 
rhino said:
What is art? What does it mean to be human? What is intellectual property or is there such a thing? Does any of it matter?
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Well ok

Art is an impulse of expression. If anyone calls this impulse "art" for any reason then it is.

To be human is to be a mostly hairless primate that is aware. kinda... What does it mean? Your guess is as good as mine. I for one don't think consciousness is that big a deal in the vastness of the Universe

Property is a construct of human society. So yes it's a thing

I would say yes. for the sake of our children and others.
 
rhino said:
What is art? What does it mean to be human? What is intellectual property or is there such a thing? Does any of it matter?
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Pacific Storm.

That's the name of my kids soccer team. It beat out Night Terrors, The Tyrants and The Nightmares. The kids voted. I learned after the fact, that Nico used the AI suggestion of Pacific Storm for his winning idea. He's 10. I'm pretty sure if he writes a 'Let It Be' type of song, his 'idea' will be AI generated. He might even do it while riding an electric skateboard.
It's not coming, it's here. *Spits*
 
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Andrew Sak said:
Pacific Storm.

That's the name of my kids soccer team. It beat out Night Terrors, The Tyrants and The Nightmares. The kids voted. I learned after the fact, that Nico used the AI suggestion of Pacific Storm for his winning idea. He's 10. I'm pretty sure if he writes a 'Let It Be' type of song, his 'idea' will be AI generated. He might even do it while riding an electric skateboard.
It's not coming, it's here. Spits.
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Singing algorithms
Not by me
 
Bones McHorror said:
Look at this nerd over paying for the pro version.
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Well, the King of England over there has the money for it. He’s reading the newspaper and doing the crossword and it’s that him espresso. Dude is using AI to write bangers for the 1% jet set. Goddamn hipster Warren Buffett shit.
 
Kudos to @Peen Simmons for finding a real example and not just having another pearl clutching abstract discussion. I didn’t know Suno existed, but for a few bucks of my money and a few hours of my time I got some interesting results and learned something.

Try it out and let us know how it goes.
 
Something that's been on my mind latley with the big push to incorporate AI into every aspect of life is the fundamental question of 'why are you doing the thing you are doing?' Essentially, are you deriving satisfaction/reward from the existence of a final product or the personal experience in creating that final product?

I've found that I'm fine with AI taking some of the general drudgery out of my day but I'm getting zero personal satisfaction from prompting AI to attempt to do everything for me and simply debugging/polishing its output.
 
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