While the media tells us to watch out for wars, the economy and the changing political landscape, I’ve managed to find something else to worry about. I’ve been hearing about this artificial intelligence revolution for years now, the stuff of sci-fi nightmares, but I’ve finally seen its power in action. And it really makes me wonder.
My friend Dan, who I would characterize as intelligent, well read, and good with words, found an AI songwriting program online. He inputted a few of his ideas for song lyrics and added some genre prompts. The algorithm spit back out some brand new, completed songs, with verses, pre-choruses, choruses and so on. He even prompted “’60s girl group” into one of them, and it came back with something that could pass for the Ronettes or the Shirelles.
Dan said he liked the program because the artificial intelligence algorithm took his lyrics, full of striking images, and developed them into singable vocal lines. Fair enough – a good musical tool.
He asked if I had anything I’d been working on. I always have a stockpile of bits and pieces, so I dug up a complete set of lyrics, which I had felt had a ’60s Dylan kind of vibe.
Later that afternoon, he sent me two complete versions of my lyrics matched to AI generated music. The “country” version was awkward, but the “punk” version was a revelation; it could sit alongside a ’90s playlist including the Offspring or Green Day, complete with an absolutely anthemic singalong chorus. So, I’ll take credit for the lyrics, but who is the cowriter?
And does artificial intelligence learn how to write better the more lyrics get entered into its database? “Right now, this program is as dumb as it’ll get – it will only get better at responding to prompts and inputs,” Dan said. I wondered: How much better? Could it create a completely fabricated classic Fleetwood Mac album, Rumours II as it were? Or, what if Freddie Mercury had joined Fleetwood Mac in the ’70s – what would that sound like?
And so on to the point of impossibility. And then it struck me – what if some future online reader wants a review of let’s say the AI version of Hank Williams Sr. fronting Fleetwood Mac, as reviewed by any given well-known writer, or one less so, like myself? Is that even valid – an AI summary of an AI invention?
I guess the sampling and autotune stuff has finally reached its logical end. Is there a solution? Maybe. Already people are sensing falsely generated video and voice overs, and maybe we’ll all have to start learning how to spot similar problems with AI generated music. And songwriters will just have to write better songs.
I’ve always gone along with the conceit that songs are like your children. Some are smart, or beautiful or successful, others not so much. Some go out into the world too early, while others stick close to home forever. Still, you love ’em all anyway. So, if you happen to run into one out there in the modern world, a “punk” song in the key of E flat called “Best When I Am Restless,” tell him his old man said hello and wishes him well.
JC Mosquito spends most of his day keeping the wolves from the door. When he's not occupied with this pastime, he's interested in all things rock and roll -- which may or may not have died back in the late 1950s, the late 1970s, or the early '90s, depending on who you believe. Contact Something Else! at
[email protected].
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While the media tells us to watch out for wars, the economy and the changing political landscape, I’ve managed to find something else to worry about. I’ve been hearing about this artificial intelligence revolution for years now, the stuff of sci-fi nightmares, but I’ve finally seen its power in action. And it really makes me wonder.
My friend Dan, who I would characterize as intelligent, well read, and good with words, found an AI songwriting program online. He inputted a few of his ideas for song lyrics and added some genre prompts. The algorithm spit back out some brand new, completed songs, with verses, pre-choruses, choruses and so on. He even prompted “’60s girl group” into one of them, and it came back with something that could pass for the Ronettes or the Shirelles.
Dan said he liked the program because the artificial intelligence algorithm took his lyrics, full of striking images, and developed them into singable vocal lines. Fair enough – a good musical tool.
He asked if I had anything I’d been working on. I always have a stockpile of bits and pieces, so I dug up a complete set of lyrics, which I had felt had a ’60s Dylan kind of vibe.
Later that afternoon, he sent me two complete versions of my lyrics matched to AI generated music. The “country” version was awkward, but the “punk” version was a revelation; it could sit alongside a ’90s playlist including the Offspring or Green Day, complete with an absolutely anthemic singalong chorus. So, I’ll take credit for the lyrics, but who is the cowriter?
And does artificial intelligence learn how to write better the more lyrics get entered into its database? “Right now, this program is as dumb as it’ll get – it will only get better at responding to prompts and inputs,” Dan said. I wondered: How much better? Could it create a completely fabricated classic Fleetwood Mac album, Rumours II as it were? Or, what if Freddie Mercury had joined Fleetwood Mac in the ’70s – what would that sound like?
And so on to the point of impossibility. And then it struck me – what if some future online reader wants a review of let’s say the AI version of Hank Williams Sr. fronting Fleetwood Mac, as reviewed by any given well-known writer, or one less so, like myself? Is that even valid – an AI summary of an AI invention?
I guess the sampling and autotune stuff has finally reached its logical end. Is there a solution? Maybe. Already people are sensing falsely generated video and voice overs, and maybe we’ll all have to start learning how to spot similar problems with AI generated music. And songwriters will just have to write better songs.
I’ve always gone along with the conceit that songs are like your children. Some are smart, or beautiful or successful, others not so much. Some go out into the world too early, while others stick close to home forever. Still, you love ’em all anyway. So, if you happen to run into one out there in the modern world, a “punk” song in the key of E flat called “Best When I Am Restless,” tell him his old man said hello and wishes him well.
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