# I'm concerned about the future with regard to tech/AI and some forms of composing.



## Headlands (Nov 11, 2020)

I just saw that https://www.ampermusic.com/ got bought by Shutterstock. Amper is a virtual music creator that seeks to eliminate the need for a composer in many situations, or the need to pay for music from a library. *I know that it will never replace humans in certain ways*, but things like this are a concern, as they are in many other areas of businesses where tech ends up meaning less work for lots of people.

It is what it is, but it makes me feel a bit scared not only for myself, but for beginning composers starting out -- a lot of my music income in the past that enabled me to quit my day job a while ago came from libraries and ads, and something like Amper will be huge for those applications and some others. *Again, nothing will replace a human being for certain things*, but it's definitely a concern as the AI thing gets better and better (and it's damn good in some ways -- check out the site to hear for yourself).

I read that one of the creators of Amper is a composer himself, which is disheartening to me.

What are your thoughts? No need to argue that composers will always be needed -- I know that. But as this kind of things grows it means less work and less income in some pretty significant ways for a big amount composers who make a living from, for example, libraries, ads, and many other avenues where AI music could be used for.

EDIT: This is not an "end of the composing world" post at all, but what I feel is a legitimate fear for some parts of the composing world.


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## Headlands (Nov 11, 2020)

But I suppose I really can't complain given how tech for DAWs and composing enables us to forgo entire orchestras and all kinds of musicians. Man...it's a crazy world.


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## tc9000 (Nov 11, 2020)

Not surprisingly, the only people with concerns are those looking at losing their livelihoods. Everyone else is itching to rush in and enjoy the benefits (though I hope we'll see a more 'mature' palette developing - valve driven, antique tape echo box anyone?). I remember stupidly telling a taxi-driver I was looking forward to driverless cars... and then realising the impact that would have on him.

I imagine AI entrepreneurs are zipping around through all the professions looking to capture data sets from expert workers. I guess this is how vintage hardware feels when the Acustica techs come to scan you! One last well-paid, really weird gig, and then its off to the knackers yard...

I expect the reality will be market disruption for things that easily lend themselves to AI replacement, and a re-appraisal and re-recognition of things that don't. Either way progress is coming!


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## Headlands (Nov 11, 2020)

tc9000 said:


> Not surprisingly, the only people with concerns are those looking at losing their livelihoods. Everyone else is itching to rush in and enjoy the benefits (though I hope we'll see a more 'mature' palette developing - valve driven, antique tape echo box anyone?). I remember stupidly telling a taxi-driver I was looking forward to driverless cars... and then realising the impact that would have on him.
> 
> I imagine AI entrepreneurs are zipping around through all the professions looking to capture data sets from expert workers. I guess this is how vintage hardware feels when the Acustica techs come to scan you! One last well-paid, really weird gig, and then its off to the knackers yard...
> 
> I expect the reality will be market disruption for things that easily lend themselves to AI replacement, and a re-appraisal and re-recognition of things that don't. Either way progress is coming!



Agreed, yeah. It's coming or has already come for everyone, from orchestras to most instruments to taxis to photography to factory workers to...you name it. I remember an article a while back that spoke about how technology will be the death of humanity at some point. We're not there yet, but the fact that tech does make many different professions either lose or worry about losing their livelihoods is quite mad....though, as you said, it's progress and that's the way it is.


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## tc9000 (Nov 11, 2020)

It's not all bad though - machine learning / AI etc is incredibly powerfull and could be part of a bunch of key developments (CRISPR, gravitational waves, _white_ blu-tack, etc, etc) that might propel us forward massively as a species... I think we just have to not blow our heads off in the interim period and we'll be grand.


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## Stringtree (Nov 11, 2020)

I'm facing the same in voice over. 

As much as technology allows us to disassociate from one another, I'm listening to Mendelssohn's Songs Without Words. A real emotional journey.

Can this have been composed with AI? Probably not. There's love, anger, frustration. Romance. Contemplation.

I'm making tomato soup with BLT sandwiches. Do I want an AI version of this? Feck no. I have a clear conception of what it will be and it's not a fecking robot. It's a journey toward human reality. It's not at all some ship out of a can.

In voice over it sounds like a person, but is approaching it. As for what happens after I die, screw you all. I'm old enough to evade this evil. I will die peacefully remembering the sound of my friends. They have real voices and inflections.

Pastiche is not a bad word. It implies homage. There is more to be said from a dead genre. Remember when? Gosh, the intonations of someone who knows how to touch keys on a piano.

To people who don't know what came before, thin representations make me more than angry. It's not hard. It's a button. That's exactly what's allowing people with zero interest to wield great historical powers and insist they made them up. Look at the history. We have a lot of it.

Card catalog. Notes scribbled in the corners. It's not me, dude, I really care about our shared knowledge. 

Yes, I grew up in the Internet age, but I care deeply about what we're going to do with it. 

Sitting astride the before and the after affords one a certain anguish. Just texting after must be an amazing feat. 

This makes me happy. The guy in the mouse head and dance beats makes others happy. I'm glad music is still a thing:


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## rgames (Nov 11, 2020)

Headlands said:


> it means less work and less income in some pretty significant ways for a big amount composers who make a living from, for example, libraries, ads, and many other avenues where AI music could be used for


I haven't seen any evidence that this claim is true. I am with ASCAP, and ASCAP payouts and membership have grown consistently for many years (this year is an exception because of the pandemic). Payouts passed $1B a few years ago. More people are making more money, not fewer and definitely not less.

The thing that people forget is that these kinds of tools and technologies aren't replacing people: they're filling needs in new markets. There was no YouTube 30 years ago. There was no Netflix or Hulu 30 years ago. The market for media music is vastly larger now than 30 years ago, and some of it is going to libraries and some will probably go to AI/ML. That doesn't mean that people are being replaced, it just means that fewer new people are needed.

As with the ASCAP example, every indication I've seen shows that there are more people making more money these days, not less. I'm a perfect example: there's no way I would have been making money off my music 30 years ago, but the expansion of the media market has made it possible for me to do so. If some of that expansion is taken by AI/ML then fine - there are still more people making more money than there were 30 years ago. If you have some data to indicate otherwise then I'd be curious to see it. I've looked and I can't find it.

Also take a look at Hollywood. I think the number of composers working on major films and TV shows is significantly higher today than 30 years ago and I doubt those gigs are going anywhere. Those are built upon personal relationships and teams of people - there's no AI that's going to replace that.

Now it's certainly true that AI/ML might limit *growth* in new markets but that's not the same as "less work and less income" as you state above.

rgames


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## Headlands (Nov 11, 2020)

rgames said:


> I haven't seen any evidence that this claim is true. I am with ASCAP, and ASCAP payouts and membership have grown consistently for many years (this year is an exception because of the pandemic). Payouts passed $1B a few years ago. More people are making more money, not fewer and definitely not less.
> 
> The thing that people forget is that these kinds of tools and technologies aren't replacing people: they're filling needs in new markets. There was no YouTube 30 years ago. There was no Netflix or Hulu 30 years ago. The market for media music is vastly larger now than 30 years ago, and some of it is going to libraries and some will probably go to AI/ML. That doesn't mean that people are being replaced, it just means that fewer new people are needed.
> 
> ...



Agreed on some of that, but I disagree on some.

Yes, films and a lot of TV shows will probably always need humans. That's why I specifically mentioned library work, ads, etc., where AI can already do a really great job and will continue to get even better. Not ALL library or ad work -- it will never replace everybody, but two post houses I know/work with in L.A. have some clients who are now sometimes going that route for ads and background music in some shows because it's faster, much cheaper, and easy. The kind of the stuff that many composers make their main living off of. I'm talking as things develop from here on out, as far as making money. Right now it's relatively fine and as you say even better than when I started, too (about 15 years ago), but clients in those areas of work are often all about money and time, and AI will get more popular is my bet.

Traditional movie and episodic TV/streaming work will stay in the human realm I think (largely -- some people will go AI for that, too, I'm sure, but probable not many), but the other areas I talked about, such as places where I was able to make a living doing music in the beginning of my career to get where I am today (and still do when I have time, for mailbox money), will be changing. Not immediately, but it's already slowly starting to happen from what I've seen with my and other composer friends' clients. It's not the end of world, but I believe it will definitely affect many composers in certain realms as time marches on.


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## JohnG (Nov 11, 2020)

We'll see. I agree with one thing the OP said, that the first place composers will lose jobs is in the marginal areas -- in-house corporate training videos used to be quite a good entry point for people, to take one such example. It's possible that larger companies still will regard music for that kind of thing as part of branding / corporate homogenization, and therefore might continue to commission music with their corporate advertising theme woven in. But I do think that in areas where people "just want something" you could picture AI at some point stepping in, where they don't have much money, they don't really care too much (not at all?) about the quality, and it's dirt cheap.

*Quality? Sometimes*

I used to write music for ABC shows all the time -- their library, that is -- and some new guy came in and replaced it with IDK what. A money thing, I heard, but you never know whether what you hear is accurate. Maybe they wanted new creative direction?

Maybe the producers will stage a revolt if the new setup produces too narrow a range, or worse quality, maybe they won't. I don't know and I doubt there's a good way to predict. An awful lot of people will work for almost nothing, I hear.

*Is It Good?*

Most of the computer-generated music I've heard is total rubbish. You might get a few bars but then it goes off and starts to repeat or does something so un-musical that it's jarring.

Maybe they will get a lot better? They are always trying to do Bach, in part because it appears highly rule-based (which I actually think isn't true). You get really bad Bach.


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## Headlands (Nov 11, 2020)

JohnG said:


> We'll see. I used to write music for ABC shows all the time -- their library, that is -- and some new guy came in and replaced it with IDK what. All a money thing.
> 
> Maybe the producers will stage a revolt, maybe they won't. I don't know and I doubt there's a good way to predict.
> 
> ...



Oh yeah, for things like Bach there's a long way to go.  But for other simpler stuff I've heard music that would be great for many clients.

Hard to say, for sure -- it just makes me a little nervous, especially for the next generation of composers for the types of composing I mentioned.


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## ScarletJerry (Nov 11, 2020)

Honestly, some of the music I hear on TV commercials lately is so crappy that some of those composers *deserve *to be replaced! That kind of work will probably be automated, but there still will be a large market for TV, film, and other kinds of media, at least for a while anyway.

Scarlet Jerry


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## patrick76 (Nov 11, 2020)

https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/06/stephen-hawking-ai-could-be-worst-event-in-civilization.html


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## Krayh (Nov 12, 2020)

I personally give it 10 more years. If the ai gets better than humans who needs humans any more. Point is try to put more eggs in different baskets. Ill admit that finding more baskets is also getting more difficult every day.


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## tc9000 (Nov 12, 2020)

I was thinking how orchestral sample libraries must have looked to commercial orchestra musicians 10 or 15 years ago. Not too threatenting - they'll never get good enough to replace us, right? But now most people probably can't tell the difference between a good mock up and the real thing. And even if some people can, its the herd that matter in many of these things - as long as most people can't tell the difference, cheap fakery is usually preferred over expensive artistry.


But then I remember Christian Henson saying that people have never listened to so much orchestral music before - and I imagine that orchestral sample libraries have both fed and contributed to that appetite...


BUT THEN I imagine some poor cellist who lands a cushy gig only to find they aren't playing for human ears - they are recording samples - now all that skill and artistry goes into playing the same note at slightly increasing velocities over and over again... only so some hip hop producer can pad out a rap track chorus with a 60 second looped sustained high C...

HAHAHA what a time to be alive, folks!


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## RobbertZH (Nov 12, 2020)

As a software developer, I want to learn and practice AI / deep learning.
Besides technical "hands-on" books and courses, I also read more general books about this subject and just finished reading:

"You look like a thing and I love you" from Janelle Shane.

I can really recommend this book. It is fun (and can be understood by non-technical readers) and gives a good reality check what AI / deep learning can and cannot do.

There are funny examples, where AI's do what you ask, but not what you want, taking a ridiculous non-practical shortcut. But also serious examples where a self-riding car collided with a truck, because the AI thought that it was a traffic sign.

Another example: a trained AI that classifies an image. Give it a photo with sheep in a meadow. It correctly says there are sheep in the photo. But how does it detect it? Any white blobs (like white sheets drying in the wind) in a green background can be (wrongly) classified as sheep. A sheep sticking his head out of a car window is identified as a dog. A sheep on top of car is identified as a goat. This makes you wonder what the AI actually has learned.

You can also watch her ted talk:


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## JohnG (Nov 12, 2020)

ScarletJerry said:


> Honestly, some of the music I hear on TV commercials lately is so crappy that some of those composers *deserve *to be replaced! That kind of work will probably be automated, but there still will be a large market for TV, film, and other kinds of media, at least for a while anyway.
> 
> Scarlet Jerry



IDK if you've ever worked on a TV commercial -- maybe you have? Sometimes there is this committee thing, so that whatever the composer proposed / pitched is tortured out of recognition.

And even after it's "approved," sometimes they will just turn off one or more stems, as part of their "creative contribution." 

So in other words you never quite know whose fault it is when media music sounds feeble.

Maybe you already know all that -- apologies.


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## ScarletJerry (Nov 12, 2020)

JohnG said:


> IDK if you've ever worked on a TV commercial -- maybe you have? Sometimes there is this committee thing, so that whatever the composer proposed / pitched is tortured out of recognition.
> 
> And even after it's "approved," sometimes they will just turn off one or more stems, as part of their "creative contribution."
> 
> ...


John,

I've never composed for commercials, or actually ANY commercial project, so no, I didn't know that. My comment was partially in jest. I'm not throwing all commercial composers under the bus, but I hear, with increasing frequency, tunes that sound like someone picked a bunch of musical phrases and stuck them together or they just repeat a short loop over and over.

I guess there will always be a battle between creatives and editors/producers. I used to do freelance writing, and I stopped when an editor ran out of space for my article in a magazine and just cut it off in the middle rather than edit the text. It sounds like similar things happen in commercial composing.

Scarlet Jerry


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## JohnG (Nov 12, 2020)

ScarletJerry said:


> I guess there will always be a battle between creatives and editors/producers. I used to do freelance writing, and I stopped when an editor ran out of space for my article in a magazine and just cut it off in the middle rather than edit the text. It sounds like similar things happen in commercial composing.
> 
> Scarlet Jerry



That is a wicked story about your article -- yikes!

Similar stuff happens all the time with music. I attended a dub once (where the music was being added to dialogue, sound effects, backgrounds -- the overall sound mix) and they decided to turn off a couple of stems for one scene and forgot to restore those stems for at least the two succeeding scenes.

Stuff like that happens all the time. If they have time to go back, maybe they do; but maybe they don't.

To be fair I think many creative people forget their place in the media-music business. Sometimes they want High Art, sometimes they want a house painter who will just use the colour the homeowner chose, no matter how awful.

*It's Hard To Describe Music*

But even when there's all the will in the world to coax true artistic collaboration, it can be so hard to communicate what the producers want. Talking about music is so difficult; if it's "sad," does that mean nostalgia, wistfulness, grand tragedy, heartbreak, personal or global, an inflection point in the character's life after which nothing will be the same, or something else? And do you actually, as a composer, play the sadness "on the nose," or do you instead play the sweetness of the lost person / favourite dog / burned down home?

And even with that, the composer still has to make 10,000 decisions about instrumentation, register, tempo, volume, intimacy / large scale.

There is just not enough time to talk about all of that for every cue in a TV show -- nobody has any time -- or even in a movie. (For games there is more time to experiment and iterate, so in some ways games afford the greatest possibility for collaboration.)

Not to mention the possibility that they recut the scene and / or the music so it's not the composer's intention.

So that's why, when I don't like the music, I try to reserve judgement.


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## Jay Panikkar (Nov 12, 2020)

I like to think of AI as the next "phase" in the democratisation of technology.

With all the affordable and accessible online courses and tools these days, almost anyone can learn and do anything. The bar to entry has never been lower. A lot of domains are being heavily saturated as a result, but not in the traditional sense. To a large extent, as @rgames points out, the newcomers are filling in spaces that previously didn't exist.

But the untold story here is how it changes the perceived gap—and therefore the perceived value—between skill / talent levels at the extremes. This perceived gap is now larger than it has ever been. With tens of thousands of noobs flooding the entry level space doing the exact same thing as every other noob, the handful of exceptional individuals now become the 'gods' of the domain. I think this will become even more drastic with AI, which will put an even bigger premium on the exceptional.

After all, AI is more "A" than "I." It'll take a while before organic creative ideation is simulated, assuming that it's actually possible.


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## GtrString (Nov 12, 2020)

3 things on my mind about this.

1) Artificial intelligence is overhyped. No matter how good the scripting of the algorithms, AI can never be intentional, improvise in any qualified way nor conceptualize anything. All of this is neccesary in any meaningful compositional work.

2) AI compositions may especially be attractive to the people in the biz that don’t appreciate music and contributes to devalue it. If so, that will be a win-win. They get what they want, and leave the rest of us alone for good.

3) We will have to differentiate closer between AI (automatic) music and real (intentional) music, and thereby raise the value of intentional music with the specific production costs of originality, time, process and competence involved. This is an advance from now, where these things are ignored by large.

So, I believe AI music will be the next best thing to sliced bread for composers and producers, and welcome to see the cat come out of the box. It may take a few years before the broad mass gets sick of it, but we will probably end up with a situation similar to the one we had in the 1990s, where media houses started to request music that sounded less «midi». They will hunger for music that sound less «AI» soon enough.


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## Mike Greene (Nov 12, 2020)

I think the appeal of AI is mostly for the coders who program it. That was my original intent for Hip Hop Creator, in fact. It was a fun challenge to see how far I could deconstruct and reconstruct the genre. It got a little too complex, and I shifted directions so HHC is not now what I would call "AI," but that was the appeal of making it.

It was fun to do, but as it turns out, the market is less interested in buying it than I was in making it. We sell a bunch, mind you, but nowhere near what I expected given how many musical novices there are who would want instant beats. Oddly, and I know this will sound like marketing hype, but I think it's because we made it _too_ easy. In fact, we starting selling way more when I took away the tagline, _"So easy, anyone can be a hip hop producer."_

Music is ultimately a human thing. When rock got too slick, then grunge became the new thing. Like a rebellion from overly polished and less "real" rock. I think there was a big lesson in that, and I'll bet pop music moves away from so much synthetic stuff in the next few years. AI may eventually get to a point where it can navigate those changes, but I think we're a long way off from that.

Even orchestrally, I'm not sure what the market for this will be. (I remember talking to Sam and Michael when they started this company years ago, by the way. I wrote a little about it in this 2018 NAMM report post.) Sure, it sounds like a great solution, but will producers really use it?

Back when I was doing commercials, sometimes I'd get asked to write some trivial generic sounding bed, and I wondered why they didn't save some money and just use needle-drop. The clients would say because they didn't want to bother. Why spend hours (hours they didn't have) listening to library CDs when they could just toss a few grand to Mike Greene? Plus get to hear his stupid jokes.

I could see the same thing with a film score. Sure, they could save a few bucks and use AI ... but who the heck wants to learn the software and deal with all that? The director doesn't want to do that, and I doubt the editor does, either. I guess maybe some music supervisors/editors will, but ... part of the reason you hire those people is because they have their fingers on the pulse of new _real_ music. You want your music supervisor to be someone who KCRW might hire to do "Morning Becomes Eclectic," not a dweeb who turns knobs on the Musitron 3000.

Plus part of the reason you hire a composer is so they think of directions and ideas that you wouldn't have thought of. AI is not going to _invent_ the braamm, or the Jaws theme. It can imitate them, but someone else has to invent them first. So given that in the grand scheme of things, the composer fee isn't _that_ big a part of the budget, I don't see big name directors forfeiting the opportunity to get something great, all for the sake of a cheaper score that is merely functional.


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## JohnG (Nov 12, 2020)

Mike Greene said:


> ...the Musitron 3000



Is there going to be a Black Friday discount on that?


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## LamaRose (Nov 12, 2020)

I'm more concerned about the "AI" listeners/consumers.


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## Bluemount Score (Nov 12, 2020)

Sometimes, when I think about what AI in general could potentially do in the future, I find it quite scary. But when I think about what it might be able to do to music in specific, I get quite angry instead.

Don't know why. Actually I do...


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## NekujaK (Nov 12, 2020)

The low hanging fruit for AI development is any human activity that can be broken down into rules and patterns and constrained by a closed set of conditions. Drverless cars and chess programs are a high functioning example, while on the simpler side of things we have certain Photoshop filters and internet ad servers. I suppose the very simplest example might be the thermostat in your home.

Music creation is a tempting target for AI development because so much of it can easily be broken down into rules, patterns, and repeatable techniques. After all, that's what music theory is all about - breaking down and quantifying the structure of music so it can be understood in non-musical terms. Do this for thousands of pieces of music, and suddenly a common set of recognizeable rules and patterns emerge that can be generalized and predictably repeated.

Composers have been using these rules and patterns for centuries. There are rules for writing in the sonata form, just as there are rules for writing a blues song, to name just a couple of obvious high level examples. There are also more granular rules about tactical things like chord progressions, voicings, modes, etc. We as composers constantly trade on all these rules and patterns, whether consciously or intuitively, to streamline the music creation process and craft effective results.

So it's not surprising that music creation has been the target of so much AI programming. And it's not surprising that some of the results are actually "good enough" for some consumers. We as humans have developed an extremely thorough and quantifiable understanding of music, so we only have ourselves to blame for the rise of the Musical Terminators 🤖

I don't know enough about other creative pursuits, like painting, writing, sculpture, etc. to know if they are also ripe for AI invasion, but I imagine there are at least a few people hard at work trying to figure out how to make it happen. And whether the results are objectively good or bad, one has to wonder if it truly qualifies as art, or can art only emanate from humans. I believe Data from ST Next Gen pondered this while he/it painted on a canvas.


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## tc9000 (Nov 12, 2020)

Provided with genre, artist, and lyrics as input, OpenAI's Jukebox outputs stuff like this. 

Jazz, in the style of Ella Fitzgerald


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## tc9000 (Nov 12, 2020)

Creepy AF


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## rgames (Nov 12, 2020)

The industrial revolution pushed humanity beyond the limits of the human body. It worked out OK.

AI will push humanity beyond the limits of the human mind. It'll also work out OK.

I guess the soul is next. I'm not so sure that one will work out OK.

rgames


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## ryans (Nov 12, 2020)

GtrString said:


> AI can never be intentional, improvise in any qualified way nor conceptualize anything



I would be hesitant to make such an absolute prediction...


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## Headlands (Nov 12, 2020)

tc9000 said:


> Provided with genre, artist, and lyrics as input, OpenAI's Jukebox outputs stuff like this.
> 
> Jazz, in the style of Ella Fitzgerald




It's not a great song, but what it's doing is totally stunning to me. Scary indeed, simply from a technical standpoint. Unfortunately this kind of underlines what I said in my original post. Again, the song itself is not really there as a true classic-sounding song, but side from that it's frighteningly good at what its doing, and I bet the ability to write a good song in something like this style is not far away, and I know it's already there to _some_ degree for simpler styles of music.


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## Headlands (Nov 12, 2020)

Mike Greene said:


> Even orchestrally, I'm not sure what the market for this will be. (I remember talking to Sam and Michael when they started this company years ago, by the way. I wrote a little about it in this 2018 NAMM report post.) Sure, it sounds like a great solution, but will producers really use it?



I would bet they will as it continues to get better. Again, not for emotive film scores that require artistic interaction with the movie and emotion, but for the gigantic amount of many other kinds of music needs out there.

I'm sure the money Sam and Michael got was immense, so good for them - they can retire now, I bet! And lots other people are doing AI music. I suppose it's easy for the creators of these technologies to put on the backburner in their minds how these leaps in technology (AI, Facebook, Amazon, etc., etc.) affect the people who do these things for a living, or to rationalize it (we can rationalize anything, really), or to not even realize it...and that applies to so many things, from taxi drivers to composers to photographers to bookstores to you name it.

Maybe I won't have kids -- the future's looking sketchy in yet another way now.


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## Troels Folmann (Nov 12, 2020)

AI is my favorite subject matter and something we are actively dabbling with.

I shot this in April 2019 - and not much has changed:


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## gsilbers (Nov 12, 2020)

Not sure if it was already mentioned but I think these AI track might be good for Facebook info graphic videos.

there are a ton of these videos like business insiderC tech insider, wired, etc. they usually have a RF track.

I tried the competition, not sure the name. It was awe full. But there was some amazing tech on the sidelines, basically it seem like I was using garage band on a web browser.
Very cool.

I also noticed,like in Amper where the sound was not good at all.

btw- where are these people getting the sample content? They have to use a string sample library, a woodwinds library etc.

maybe it’s something developers should add o their EULA: not authorized for AI based music.


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## gsilbers (Nov 12, 2020)

Also,

why not see it from a different point of view:


flood the royalty free sites with these tracks?

it takes a few minutes do a few tracks,
Load them to pond5 etc and get side hussle at $15 per track


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## José Herring (Nov 12, 2020)

I heard my first AI composition in 1990. I heard my last AI composition a few days ago. Not much has changed. Starts off okay then after a few bars AI's make decisions that are completely so far off that it's hard to imagine that it's not just randomizing in a key.

I think the future is interactive AI where the machine helps you to make choices while composing. You give it your ideas and it realizes the notes and performance. It would be the machine version of this.


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## Headlands (Nov 12, 2020)

José Herring said:


> I heard my first AI composition in 1990. I heard my last AI composition a few days ago. Not much has changed. Starts off okay then after a few bars AI's make decisions that are completely so far off that it's hard to imagine that it's not just randomizing in a key.
> 
> I think the future is interactive AI where the machine helps you to make choices while composing. You give it your ideas and it realizes the notes and performance. It would be the machine version of this.




I'm not a fan of that idea of AI either for a few different reasons that include both job security and talent/working at it to become great, but that's just me, and it's irrelevant because it's very likely going to happen.

As far as full-on composing I haven't heard anything that makes me worry, but song-based instrumental stuff of many different kinds of genres yes, for sure. Composing for films etc. is not what I'm worried about -- it's a lot of the other work that we composers also do to make a living that I'm worried about. Again, it won't happen overnight, but still.


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## Dave Connor (Nov 12, 2020)

Stringtree said:


> I'm facing the same in voice over.
> 
> As much as technology allows us to disassociate from one another, I'm listening to Mendelssohn's Songs Without Words. A real emotional journey.
> 
> ...



I’ve been listening to and studying that Mendelssohn collection on and off for months. Currently writing piano pieces modeled (somewhat) on his forms. As my composition teacher Hal Johnson once said to me, _I submit to you that these are miniature masterpieces. _The Daniel Barenboim recordings are marvelous.


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## purple (Nov 12, 2020)

JohnG said:


> IDK if you've ever worked on a TV commercial -- maybe you have? Sometimes there is this committee thing, so that whatever the composer proposed / pitched is tortured out of recognition.
> 
> And even after it's "approved," sometimes they will just turn off one or more stems, as part of their "creative contribution."
> 
> ...


My usual go-to explanation for why some particular aspect of a big budget film or TV show was so bad is that some department other than the guys who are primarily responsible screwed them over. The people that get hired to do these things are the best of the best, so it always seems unlikely to me that they just suck or had a bad run. Rather what seems more likely to me is that somebody from another department (often directors or producers with big egos, tbh) overstepped and tried to control something they don't understand and ended up ruining somebody else's good work.


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## Kent (Nov 13, 2020)

Computers do the stuff humans shouldn’t need to waste their time doing anymore. AI isn’t the problem, it’s the solution to mindless and repetitive work.


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## purple (Nov 13, 2020)

kmaster said:


> Computers do the stuff humans shouldn’t need to waste their time doing anymore. AI isn’t the problem, it’s the solution to mindless and repetitive work.


Can't imagine your job is very fulfilling if it's so bland and uninspired that these computer programs can do it just as well.


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## Troels Folmann (Nov 13, 2020)

kmaster said:


> Computers do the stuff humans shouldn’t need to waste their time doing anymore. AI isn’t the problem, it’s the solution to mindless and repetitive work.



Fake news! An AI that wrote this!


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## Kent (Nov 13, 2020)

Troels Folmann said:


> Fake news! An AI that wrote this!


You got me! 🤖


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## RobbertZH (Nov 14, 2020)

AI uses patterns that it has learned to create a new piece of "art", be it paintings or music.
But the question is, if this is enough to create memorable music.

I am into (among others) progressive and symphonic rock
and bought CD's (yes, I am old school ) that I played daily for weeks on end and albums which I found disappointing really fast. I do not know why I love album A, but album B from another group does not do anything for me, although both follow all the hallmarks of progressive rock (melody, arrangement, etc, etc). With all the musical knowledge I have, I really really do not know why.

AI does not understand music at all. It just follows patterns that it has learned analyzing really lots of training material (possibly midi files) to create music. If I still do not know why I love music piece A, but not music piece B that follows the same hallmarks (patterns), can an AI learn the difference?

We underestimate what humans can do:

The AI/deep learning book that I mentioned in my previous post tells how very good even small children are in recognition. Give a child that has never seen a sheep before, one (!) photo of a sheep made from the side in a green meadow. Then show a photo of a sheep take from the front, so you see mostly the head and only a a small portion of the body, and the child will recognize that it is a sheep. Now do the same with an AI. First of all you have to train the AI, not with one photo, but with thousands of photo's of a sheep. If those photos (the training set) are taken from the side, it wont recognize a sheep when the photo is taken from the front. And when you train an AI with all kinds of photos of sheep taken from all angles in all kinds of surroundings, you will still not be sure that it will recognize a sheep always even while a small child has no difficulty at all.

And back to music again: Are creating melodies really only a matter of following rules (patterns)?
Guy Michelmore thinks differently:


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## Kurosawa (Nov 14, 2020)

I think AI will benefit us in incredible ways and will replace a lot of jobs that don't require a big skill in doing them. I don't see a reason why humans should still be doing many jobs in the creative world that punish their creativity and drain them out.

And nobody forbids you to start learning how to create artificial neural networks. I myself did several courses on this topic in the summer, they are all available for free made by some top figures of the scene.


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## tc9000 (Nov 14, 2020)

A great series on Deep Learning:



Whatever these developments mean, once they are out you can't really put them back in the (Pandora's?) box.


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## GNP (Nov 14, 2020)

If it's not a custom made project, I think we should also understand how editors or producers choose their source of music for their project. From Audio Jungle, Big Bang Fuzz, etc etc. It can be quite a pain in the neck to go through tons of tracks to find one that fits what they're looking for. If AI could further make that task easier, then I understand that they would prefer it. This is regardless of whether the music is "good" or "bad" - as long as they feel it works.

In terms of AI making music itself, I really don't care. People come to me because of customized scoring, if not, they would go pick stock music themselves (AI or human). Just mindin' my own business!


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## lokier (Nov 14, 2020)

kmaster said:


> Computers do the stuff humans shouldn’t need to waste their time doing anymore. AI isn’t the problem, it’s the solution to mindless and repetitive work.



AI is the solution to mindless and repetitive work?



So, tell me more! *How MINDFUL and NON-REPETITIVE music library tracks are*?

The most repetitive harmonic progressions in history, with the most repetitive musical forms. Soooo much repetition.

The point is, AI is growing in the music business, MOSTLY because of the BS claim that "there's not enough budget for everyone".

*Performers:*
Mechanical jobs are the easiest to get started replacing with AI, such as playing instruments. To mimic a brain thought process in a computer is challenging, but a mechanical movement is much more predictable. It is not perfect yet, we all know that, but hey, ask your filmmaker and game dev colleagues how much difference they can see? I bet they love your tracks full of MIDI sounds.

To entirely replace music performers is another level of discussion. But, if you want to play an instrument, boy you got to be incredibly good these days. Due to the supposedly "lack of budget", sample libraries come in very handy. And that decreases the demand of music performers. How much music library orchestral tracks use live orchestras!? Lol.

*Composers*:
Machine can't compose/create yet, so my composer brain counts here. And then, what many do with the "brain" advantage? Don't use it. I mentioned it is challenging to mimic a brain thought process in a computer, but what if there is a sameness or standard in the brain thought process? How much is actually "new" or just "repeated"?

How much sophistication and depth music library tracks usually have? Instead, it is very clear there's a continuously reinforced standard in harmony, instruments, musical forms, many other elements.

Is it 100% standardized? It isn't, for sure. However, the more tracks exist in these libraries, the more they become data for AI, which will analyse these tracks, find out most common standards and done. Hence, there is a strong tendency that simple compositions will be taken by AI. And music libraries are full of those...

In the end, the best thing to do is work hard (who could tell!?). Be ahead of this race, continue to improve your composition, and don't rely on the comfort zone of things that don't take you much effort...

Or maybe everything I am saying is bullshit, as no one really knows


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## Kent (Nov 14, 2020)

lokier said:


> AI is the solution to mindless and repetitive work?
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Yes. I wasn't talking about the music—that is a whole other discussion—but rather the work itself.

The ultimate goal is to compose (or paint, or build, or bake, or any other action) because we _want_ to, not because we _need_ to. Human invention has been marching forward to take the drudgery of life out of the equation. We domesticated plants to make them yield more food and domesticated animals to help us collect them. We created wheels to help us move heavier things and mechanisms to multiply the pulling. We harnessed the wind, fire, steam, electricity, and even the atom, all in pursuit of reducing our own workload. The industrial revolution accelerated our slow lurch forward; the digital age has only accelerated it more. We currently live in a post-scarcity world—or would if political and corporate needs did not make such an existence impossible. It's not even Star Trek!

Have some people lost work as inventions and innovations obsolete old ways of doing things? Certainly! Have we as a species lost our will to live, to create, to enjoy, to be human, in all this? No, we have not! AI is a tool just like all the tools that have come before it; the next step in our collective evolution. 

We'll find things to struggle over—we're only human, after all  But it will most likely look a lot more like arguing over nuances of definition on some online forum than outrunning some wild ungulate so our family can avoid a fatal caloric deficit. 

AI is not the problem—it's how The Powers That Be allow the rest of us to benefit (or not) from it, just as it always has been.


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## lokier (Nov 14, 2020)

kmaster said:


> Computers do the stuff humans shouldn’t need to waste their time doing anymore. AI isn’t the problem, it’s the solution to mindless and repetitive work.





kmaster said:


> Yes. I wasn't talking about the music—that is a whole other discussion—but rather the work itself.
> 
> The ultimate goal is to compose (or paint, or build, or bake, or any other action) because we _want_ to, not because we _need_ to. Human invention has been marching forward to take the drudgery of life out of the equation. We domesticated plants to make them yield more food and domesticated animals to help us collect them. We created wheels to help us move heavier things and mechanisms to multiply the pulling. We harnessed the wind, fire, steam, electricity, and even the atom, all in pursuit of reducing our own workload. The industrial revolution accelerated our slow lurch forward; the digital age has only accelerated it more. We currently live in a post-scarcity world—or would if political and corporate needs did not make such an existence impossible. It's not even Star Trek!
> 
> ...



What an answer man! Let me know if you want to collab on a book about the end of the world and how humans will prevail  OR NOT lol

My answer was "more specifically" to music libraries because the thread creator said most of his income comes from music library and ads... We all know this "generic" music compositions will likely be the first AI will come for!

The truth is that, there is no truth, we are just speculating here about what's really going to happen.

I just don't necessarily agree with "AI is a tool just like all the tools that have come before it". AI is shaping the world like the other tools we had before, fine, humans always trying to make life easier, indeed. But AI is different. Why? No other tool has got so close to start reproducing the human brain thought process outside of a human!

We are able to mimic so many human organs these days, many people living dependent on a machine, literally. But the brain? This is not the same.

Anyway, screw COVID.


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## brunocoliveira (Nov 15, 2020)

I don't see how can AI-generated music can be a threat to composers if the price of AI generated music and library music is competitive enough. At the end, if your music is better than AI, then you will get your buck.


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## Headlands (Nov 19, 2020)

brunocoliveira said:


> At the end, if your music is better than AI, then you will get your buck.



Have been making a living as a composer for about 15 years and I would say that that's not necessarily the case. Many clients want speed and low cost, and AI can/will give them that if they want it. Just listen to the 1000s of shows that use library music and you'll hear lots of stuff that ain't great but that they used because it was cheap and easy...but at least a composer is making money with them.


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## purple (Nov 19, 2020)

Headlands said:


> Have been making a living as a composer for about 15 years and I would say that that's not necessarily the case. Many clients want speed and low cost, and AI can/will give them that if they want it. Just listen to the 1000s of shows that use library music and you'll hear lots of stuff that ain't great but that they used because it was cheap and easy...but at least a composer is making money with them.


Speed at low cost is abundant already. Someone could probably get some schmucks from this site to line up to score a whole movie for free for "exposure". It's obvious that most media people like quality, and they like working with people they like.


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## Headlands (Nov 19, 2020)

purple said:


> Speed at low cost is abundant already. Someone could probably get some schmucks from this site to line up to score a whole movie for free for "exposure". It's obvious that most media people like quality, and they like working with people they like.



I agree that it's available already, but this is available faster and far more customizable. Yes, people like working with people they like, but I'm talking about the future and how things will possibly develop especially for those beginning a scoring career. And I'm only talking about the things that music AI could affect. But, like almost everything on a forum, it's all just talk.


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## dgburns (Nov 19, 2020)

One day, Something ‘AI’ will create a musical work so far beyond human comprehension, we will not recognize it as music.

AI will one day surpass Human comprehension, it‘s just a matter of time. As a human, I may be able to offer value as an editor of the output from AI, but that will be the extent of it.

That said, I’m looking forward to writing my first AI assisted novel, lol.

-edit-

And alcohol, AI will never understand this simple pleasure. again lol.


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