We need gatekeepers for music to shepherd, that can lead with grace, wisdom and humility. Hopefully the younger musicians will also help the gatekeepers remember the joy and passion that drew them to music.
Not sure I always catch the meaning of songs, but this podcast reminds me of the Rush lyrics:
"All this machinery making modern music
Can still be open-hearted
Not so coldly charted, it's really just a question of your honesty
Creativity has more to do with the creator than the instrument or the medium it’s being applied to. I always figured that if a creative person were stranded on a desert island, he/she would find a way to write an opera using coconuts. Creativity is an illusive subjective discipline. Who’s to say what makes music valid or what makes it good. But as the saying goes, I don’t know what good music is, but I know it when I hear it. Regardless of the instrument or app being used to create a song--- it always gets down to these things. Does listening to a piece of music make you feel something? Does it engage you? Does it reach you at a visceral level?
Why does a minor chord make you feel sad or melancholy? Why do major chords make you feel joyous or happy? It's just strings vibrating at a certain frequency creating an emotional response. That's a mysterious thing----a beautiful thing, a soulful thing. Which begs the question, does AI have a soul? Can AI replicate soulfulness? Maybe that’s a question better answered by Hal from "2001: A Space Odyssey"——“Open the pod door Hal” "I'm sorry Dave I can't do that". There's the repetitive sound of Dave inhaling and exhaling in his space suite. "I'm afraid Dave". As Dave begins to turn off Hal's operating system, Hal begins to sing, “A Bicycle Built For Two.” His voice gradually retards as he's being disconnected, he's dying. Do you have to have a soul in order to die? Hum--?
You can practice and learn to play all the scales and modes and still be a lack luster musician. There are artistic intangibles beyond technique. Charlie Parker once said, “First you learn the instrument, then you learn the music, then you forget all that s**t and just play.” “Thought is the enemy of flow” (Vinnie Colaiuta). Maybe thinking has nothing to do with creativity.
Maybe it doesn’t matter how we get there (because there is no “there” there) but more importantly, musically we must evolve and innovate new and interesting ways to express ourselves. Creativity abhors rules and dismisses convention. It leaves those behind who find themselves trapped in the amber of a gone by style or era.
I fight that feeling of becoming an old fart who shakes his fist at the sky and screams “They sure as hell don’t write them the way they use to.” But then again, there's parts of me too that says music is a sacred thing and doesn’t deserve to be trivialized by some punk kid playing around with an AI app.
Music began thousands of years ago by some guy beating out a groove on a hollow log. Was that music? Hum? Be it a hollow log or an AI app, one thing that hasn’t changed in all these years, is that music has been and always will be in the process of trying to find new and innovative ways to communicate complex human emotions. And I suppose that's all that matters.
We need gatekeepers for music to shepherd, that can lead with grace, wisdom and humility. Hopefully the younger musicians will also help the gatekeepers remember the joy and passion that drew them to music.
Not sure I always catch the meaning of songs, but this podcast reminds me of the Rush lyrics:
"All this machinery making modern music
Can still be open-hearted
Not so coldly charted, it's really just a question of your honesty
Yeah, your honesty
One likes to believe in the freedom of music
But glittering prizes and endless compromises
Shatter the illusion of integrity, yeah"
Requiem for Hal
Creativity has more to do with the creator than the instrument or the medium it’s being applied to. I always figured that if a creative person were stranded on a desert island, he/she would find a way to write an opera using coconuts. Creativity is an illusive subjective discipline. Who’s to say what makes music valid or what makes it good. But as the saying goes, I don’t know what good music is, but I know it when I hear it. Regardless of the instrument or app being used to create a song--- it always gets down to these things. Does listening to a piece of music make you feel something? Does it engage you? Does it reach you at a visceral level?
Why does a minor chord make you feel sad or melancholy? Why do major chords make you feel joyous or happy? It's just strings vibrating at a certain frequency creating an emotional response. That's a mysterious thing----a beautiful thing, a soulful thing. Which begs the question, does AI have a soul? Can AI replicate soulfulness? Maybe that’s a question better answered by Hal from "2001: A Space Odyssey"——“Open the pod door Hal” "I'm sorry Dave I can't do that". There's the repetitive sound of Dave inhaling and exhaling in his space suite. "I'm afraid Dave". As Dave begins to turn off Hal's operating system, Hal begins to sing, “A Bicycle Built For Two.” His voice gradually retards as he's being disconnected, he's dying. Do you have to have a soul in order to die? Hum--?
You can practice and learn to play all the scales and modes and still be a lack luster musician. There are artistic intangibles beyond technique. Charlie Parker once said, “First you learn the instrument, then you learn the music, then you forget all that s**t and just play.” “Thought is the enemy of flow” (Vinnie Colaiuta). Maybe thinking has nothing to do with creativity.
Maybe it doesn’t matter how we get there (because there is no “there” there) but more importantly, musically we must evolve and innovate new and interesting ways to express ourselves. Creativity abhors rules and dismisses convention. It leaves those behind who find themselves trapped in the amber of a gone by style or era.
I fight that feeling of becoming an old fart who shakes his fist at the sky and screams “They sure as hell don’t write them the way they use to.” But then again, there's parts of me too that says music is a sacred thing and doesn’t deserve to be trivialized by some punk kid playing around with an AI app.
Music began thousands of years ago by some guy beating out a groove on a hollow log. Was that music? Hum? Be it a hollow log or an AI app, one thing that hasn’t changed in all these years, is that music has been and always will be in the process of trying to find new and innovative ways to communicate complex human emotions. And I suppose that's all that matters.