I like this because at points it feels like it's almost there, but it really isn't, it still has this weird unsettling quality, where it doesn't really make sense. Which is the same vibe I loved...
I like this because at points it feels like it's almost there, but it really isn't, it still has this weird unsettling quality, where it doesn't really make sense. Which is the same vibe I loved in early AI image generation and that's been going away as the models got better.
Can't imagine listening to this as I do to normal music, but I see a lot of potential in incorporating bits of these slightly weird unsettling qualities into actual music production. As opposed to AI generated images we've not been flooded with imperfect AI generated music yet, so it might happen despite the current wave of AI hate, because people won't recognize that this new weird vibe comes from there.
Friend, are you familiar with Noise/Experimental a la Coil, Nurse With Wound, Throbbing Gristle? There's a whole world of vaguely-unsettling, slightly off music out there, running the complete...
Friend, are you familiar with Noise/Experimental a la Coil, Nurse With Wound, Throbbing Gristle? There's a whole world of vaguely-unsettling, slightly off music out there, running the complete gamut from mostly-musical to literal static and machine noises. If you can find them, there are compilation albums called Release Your Mind from the 90s(?) that just blew me the fuck away in high school. Great place to start.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wJWksPWDKOc is fun. It's the same basic tune played for like 6 hours, but it slowly degrades in a way that is meant to simulate cognitive decline (at least, that's my understanding of it. I could be wrong about the artist's intent).
I am! Though Caretaker is a bit too depressing for me. :D My friend listened to a big part of the whole thing on shrooms, which is something that I respect but have zero desire to ever do. Though...
I am! Though Caretaker is a bit too depressing for me. :D
My friend listened to a big part of the whole thing on shrooms, which is something that I respect but have zero desire to ever do.
Though in my comment I was expecting that this AI weirdness would be integrated more to something like post-club or hyperpop, a "genre" that's already eclectic and based almost exclusively on remixing existing genre cliches with some nostalgia and various weird vibes thrown in, which has been a significant trend in the recent decade or so.
I've been experimenting with the Riffusion platform for creating GenAI music. It's been kind of a strange ride since you own the rights to distribute the songs you make if you subscribe to their...
I've been experimenting with the Riffusion platform for creating GenAI music. It's been kind of a strange ride since you own the rights to distribute the songs you make if you subscribe to their platform. Aside from the ethical questions I have, I actually was able to generate a song I like and wonder what it means for the future of music. At the very least the future of trash top 40 music is certain to change. Would love to hear everyone's thoughts.
(in the interest of replying to your ask, not trying to attack you personally) I'm not interested in AI music. My personal tastes are fairly eclectic anyway and more in the realm of Renaissance...
(in the interest of replying to your ask, not trying to attack you personally)
I'm not interested in AI music. My personal tastes are fairly eclectic anyway and more in the realm of Renaissance Faire/Sea Shanty/Folk/Pagan/Celtic and whatever else they're throwing into New Age.
But you could tell me a piece of AI music is in any or all of those sub genres and I'd still never click on it. It's not appealing in the slightest.
While in theory you "own" the rights, I'm not sure that's been settled by court cases. I think other art has been deemed uncopyrightable when generated by AI, so ymmv?
Absolutely, it's sort of an open-ended question, because based on what I am seeing it is going to be more difficult do distinguish 'organic' music from that created by genai down the line. I am...
Absolutely, it's sort of an open-ended question, because based on what I am seeing it is going to be more difficult do distinguish 'organic' music from that created by genai down the line. I am going to keep messing around with this for fun, and the fact that I have been explicit in how this was produced all the way down to the artist persona and lyrical content, makes it at least feel a bit more 'authentic.' But honestly, if no one told me this song was made with AI I probably wouldn't be able to tell. The Riffusion ToS is the only reason I feel comfortable trying this and I verified it with their team as well.
The thing is, I don't think most people who use the service try to make music coming from the perspective of an AI, rather they are trying to 'pass' as human, which I feel much more ambivalent about.
I get that the site "grants" you the rights but if I steal the song and put it up elsewhere I'm not sure the courts agree. It's nuanced, and there probably isn't a clear ruling on every type of AI...
I get that the site "grants" you the rights but if I steal the song and put it up elsewhere I'm not sure the courts agree. It's nuanced, and there probably isn't a clear ruling on every type of AI produced work, but IMO the trend is towards uncopyrightable. Which by itself will limit the reach into the commercial music sphere.
I don't get your difference in intent - everyone's trying to make music they like or they think will sell. "The perspective of an AI vs human" feels meaningless. The "AI" has no perspective, and the humanity is, IMO stripped from the music.
I'll simply continue to listen to groups I like and trust not to use AI, as I'm not motivated by the top whatever charts. I have tons of music pre-2010 if it becomes an inescapable issue.
Sure. From my end, I dont necessarily feel very litigious over something like this, so I'm not super concerned about that scenario. I also get why you or anyone else would not want to listen to AI...
Sure. From my end, I dont necessarily feel very litigious over something like this, so I'm not super concerned about that scenario. I also get why you or anyone else would not want to listen to AI music.
The only place I really disagree is that I truly think intent matters here. If someone wants to create art, AI could be seen as another instrument, just like samples became an instrument in the early days of EDM/hip hop. I do feel like I'm expressing myself with the ideas behind the songs, even though it takes far less work than being a "real" musician.
Whether the intent matters most in art is a debate going back a long time. There's human made music that I think sucks and I can find AI music that sounds good, right before I get disappointed...
Whether the intent matters most in art is a debate going back a long time. There's human made music that I think sucks and
I can find AI music that sounds good, right before I get disappointed that it's AI and make sure it's off the recommended playlist.
But let's say instead of an AI you had an orchestra who you paid and had full control over. Perhaps it's the Renaissance and you have a lot of money. "Make me music" you tell the orchestra, "and make it sound like this" and they do but you don't like it, you tell them to make it happier or weirder or to have less cello or more cowbell, whatever. You didn't write the music, but you told the musicians what to do. Is that your composition or theirs?
To me it's theirs, no matter the "intent" you as the wealthy patron have, no matter how involved, since at no point do you write the score, you make suggestions and walk away to come back to a piece of music made by the musicians. You could own a performance of it, if you performed it, like a pop singer performing a song written and arranged for them. But not the song. I don't think it's more comparable to an instrument at all.
I get you're not planning to sue or whatever but it's a fundamental part of the debate about AI music.
I don't think the orchestra example is comparable to using AI. The orchestra's human musicians necessarily add their own perspective to the creative work because they are human. They have rights...
I don't think the orchestra example is comparable to using AI. The orchestra's human musicians necessarily add their own perspective to the creative work because they are human. They have rights over their work. The wealthy patron in your example might be more similar to a film director, who does get artistic credit for a film, along with the other people who more directly created it (actors, cinematographers, visual effects team, etc.).
When using generative AI (or any other non-human tool), the AI itself does not have its own perspective because it doesn't have consciousness or a lived experience. The prompter, as the human, is the one adding their own intent and perspective.
I think a more accurate comparison would be something like, attaching pens to a tree and letting its windblown branches "draw" on paper. The tree is not "making art" because it's not a conscious being expressing its perspective. The person who conceptualized and set this up could be considered as the artist since they put their artistic intent into it even if they didn't actively create the pen marks. (My definition of what qualifies as "art" and who can be called the "artist" is based on Ellen Dissanayake's concept of "art as making special".)
That said, even if I'd consider both the "tree-drawings" and the AI-generated pieces to be art (and the conceptualizer / "prompter" to be the artist), I wouldn't be interested in engaging with the latter for ethical reasons. (Just because I accept that something is "art" and its creator an artist, doesn't mean I consider it good, interesting, or ethical.) I don't think anyone is being harmed by trees with pens, but I do think that generative AI is currently very harmful in a systemic way.
A director is absolutely actively working on a film and making their own choices in conversation with the principals and producers. I'd compare it more to an executive producer whose name is on...
A director is absolutely actively working on a film and making their own choices in conversation with the principals and producers. I'd compare it more to an executive producer whose name is on the piece but did nothing. I used a scenario where there was total power by the patron over the orchestra to incompletely simulate an AI making music with now will of its own.
My perspective is that regardless of the fact AI cannot add its own input, neither the patron nor the prompter isn't creating the music. I'm not really saying it isn't "art" which is too subjective to be a definitive category. I'm saying it isn't the prompter's work regardless of that quality.
I don't think the tree with pens is even comparable in that light but using it its more that someone else built a tree with pens (by stealing all the pens from every artist in the world) and the prompter came across the tree and took credit for the piece created in their presence, because the way they stood impacted the wind to some small degree.
Which is why the intent of the "creator" - as highlighted by OP - isn't relevant IMO, because they didn't make anything.
I mean I did come up with the concept for the artist and song. I would say it's a bit more nuanced than coming up with "nothing." But I understand where you are coming from. I don't have the...
I mean I did come up with the concept for the artist and song. I would say it's a bit more nuanced than coming up with "nothing." But I understand where you are coming from. I don't have the training and artistic chops to pull this off manually.
Sure, I was trying to work with the analogy the previous person used. I also don't have this sort of training or vision, so I am not claiming any sort of superiority, just sharing my feelings on...
Sure, I was trying to work with the analogy the previous person used.
I also don't have this sort of training or vision, so I am not claiming any sort of superiority, just sharing my feelings on where this sort of "art" stands.
I think a person prompting generative AI art isn't necessarily "doing nothing". The process could be low-effort or high-effort. I do agree with the "pens stolen from artists" comparison though. In...
I think a person prompting generative AI art isn't necessarily "doing nothing". The process could be low-effort or high-effort. I do agree with the "pens stolen from artists" comparison though.
In a hypothetical scenario wherein generative AI tech is ethical (trained on public domain / properly licensed material; open source and accessible tech and not just a corporation profiting while harming society), I wouldn't have a problem with people using it as a tool for creating art.
As I said to OP I was trying to fit my metaphor into the one you suggested as I think "film director" is incorrect. Hence my original metaphor being more specific. Even an ethical AI would still...
As I said to OP I was trying to fit my metaphor into the one you suggested as I think "film director" is incorrect. Hence my original metaphor being more specific.
Even an ethical AI would still be comparable to the orchestra situation IMO and likely not copyrightable. Which was the point of my original point.
Huge, enormous tangent a head, you've been warned! jokingly, but the essence is still ofc serious although not really important I have not pegged you as a New Age adjacent person at all! Punk?...
Huge, enormous tangent a head, you've been warned!
jokingly, but the essence is still ofc serious although not really important
I have not pegged you as a New Age adjacent person at all! Punk? Sure! Hippie? Sure! Antifa? Sure! LGBTQ-activist? Sure! Feminist? Sure! New Age? Nope, not at all!!
In my mind New Age is what was left when the hippie movement and ideas got recuperated1 by consumerism, etc.
I know it's a tiny, tiny thing, but I do think it's important to keep the distinctio.
Anyway.... Nothing (almost) to see here, move along! ;)
1: linking this, because it's a fairly new word for me so had to look it up anyway to make sure!
Oh I grew up on (Pop) Punk and still like it. Give me Showtunes and I'm there. I don't listen to enough music to honestly have a clue what would be considered Antifa or Queer activism music, etc....
Oh I grew up on (Pop) Punk and still like it. Give me Showtunes and I'm there. I don't listen to enough music to honestly have a clue what would be considered Antifa or Queer activism music, etc.
My use of "New Age" was more me pulling the overarching, but meaningless, genre label that I saw used from the days of buying CDs up through Spotify. It's like how instead of Celtic could have said "global" and it would mean even less. But I got from say, Celtic Woman, to the more pagan/Ren Faire vibes when making playlists for larp characters, while hanging around my fellow polyamorous queer folks, many of whom are a flavor of pagan or another despite my rather annoyingly implacable agnosticism.
But I also listen to Folk and Filk and more filk and Irish lilting hits my brain as hard as acapella in pop music.
I might listen to songs from Lord of the Rings, Pakistani Instrumental, Steven Universe, Fall Out Boy, Nightwish or Disney (I'm still obsessed with this cover of I2I). When I was still using Spotify my top songs were either from Encanto, Lo-fi African Beats, or Leave (Get Out) by Jo Jo (because I played it during move out non-stop. )
But I don't listen to a ton of music often so I tend to pop along from one to the other and don't really do a ton of playlists, etc.
Oh, sorry, forgot we where talking about music and music genres... I was talking about New Age as a "movement". I'm really out of the loop with all things music so no clue here, mb! Really,...
Oh, sorry, forgot we where talking about music and music genres...
I was talking about New Age as a "movement". I'm really out of the loop with all things music so no clue here, mb!
Musically I'd say New Age is a genre from the 90s that combines World music with synths (sometimes?). I'm not sure that's a good definition, but typically when people think of New Age music they...
Musically I'd say New Age is a genre from the 90s that combines World music with synths (sometimes?). I'm not sure that's a good definition, but typically when people think of New Age music they think of Enya (or they think of staying up late and seeing the commercial for Pure Moods on TV). It's kind of tenuously connected to New Age spirituality but it's its own thing. Also I associate a certain style of 90s fantasy art with New Age music, but I'm not sure if that's just me.
Honestly, it's a vibe that I really enjoy - it's very nostalgic to me, my mom was really into fantasy and loved Enya and Yanni, and I used to surf elfwood (a tragically defunct fantasy art website) and look at drawings of dragons and stuff with that music in the background.
New Age is a nebulous enough genre that it's possible DefinitelyNotAFae means something entirely different when she mentions it, but given that she also mentioned Celtic and Folk music and Ren Faire stuff I'm betting that the Enya/Celtic Woman adjacent stuff is on the right track.
More Celtic Woman than Enya but I'd say I'm in a niche of the overarching genre. Folk probably fits just as well but much of what I listen to straddles genres and I sort of forget about songs for...
More Celtic Woman than Enya but I'd say I'm in a niche of the overarching genre. Folk probably fits just as well but much of what I listen to straddles genres and I sort of forget about songs for a while and then come back with a "oh right that's great". Music isn't super important to me. Less Yanni, more sea shanties. (But like I'm not attached to the labels really, I just vibe)
Thanks for unlocking elfwood in my brain though!
That said I'm now back listening to the pop punk A Whole New Sound Disney covers album and anticipate being in this rabbit hole for a bit.
Haha well idk why but that made me remember childhood obsessions with both Mannheim Steamroller and Adiemus Those aren't related other than I liked them 😅
Oh my god, Adiemus is so good, lmao. I hadn't thought of that song in I don't know how long, but it was absolutely on that same Pure Moods commercial 🤣
Oh my god, Adiemus is so good, lmao. I hadn't thought of that song in I don't know how long, but it was absolutely on that same Pure Moods commercial 🤣
Pure Moods (volume 1) is exactly what comes to mind when someone says “New Age”, probably because that was one of the first CDs my parents bought after we got our first CD player back in the...
Pure Moods (volume 1) is exactly what comes to mind when someone says “New Age”, probably because that was one of the first CDs my parents bought after we got our first CD player back in the mid-90s (which was actually a computer, funny enough). That CD got played countless times and I still listen to it occasionally now.
I hadn't thought about Pure Moods for years til this. I'm a bit more Hymn to Herne than Orinoco Flow but, ya know, sometimes you gotta sail away, sail away, sail away.
I hadn't thought about Pure Moods for years til this.
I'm a bit more Hymn to Herne than Orinoco Flow but, ya know, sometimes you gotta sail away, sail away, sail away.
Sea shanties? This I must learn more about. Can you recommend anything in particular I can listen to? And is there anything about the history of sea shanties that you find shareably interesting?
Sea shanties? This I must learn more about. Can you recommend anything in particular I can listen to? And is there anything about the history of sea shanties that you find shareably interesting?
So shanties popped back up after The Wellerman by Nathan Evans (not originally his) went viral on Tiktok. I've also heard The Last Shanty and Hoist the Colors played with a lot. Starting with...
So shanties popped back up after The Wellerman by Nathan Evans (not originally his) went viral on Tiktok. I've also heard The Last Shanty and Hoist the Colors played with a lot. Starting with those as a seed can get you a fun playlist, add in the Irish Rovers for more traditional music.
Obligatory: Most of the "shanties" you see are actually just sea songs or are modern inventions in the style of sea shanties/songs. It depends on if it's actually used for work. Actual shanties include Leave her Johnny (Leave Her) and Drunken Sailor. I'm not that picky.
I love the history of work songs and how they were ways of building community, of resistance and protest, and making heavy or dreary work lighter while, especially for shanties and similar, serving a purpose to the work itself. (If I could get another degree it would be in folklore) They're not always as fun to listen to as the more popular versions but they say so much about the culture and history of those singing
I'll give you credit for mentioning The Irish Rovers, another great Irish/Canadian folk band... but talking about sea shanties / maritime folk without mentioning Stan Rogers or Gordon Lightfoot is...
I'll give you credit for mentioning The Irish Rovers, another great Irish/Canadian folk band... but talking about sea shanties / maritime folk without mentioning Stan Rogers or Gordon Lightfoot is a capital crime up here in Canada! And must I remind you that Tildes is a Canadian site and so must follow Canadian laws!? ;)
I am proud of myself for writing it so shortly after waking up and making any sense at all! But if you must, please send only one very specific constable from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to...
I am proud of myself for writing it so shortly after waking up and making any sense at all!
But if you must, please send only one very specific constable from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to come get me. One who perhaps came to Chicago Illinois on the trail of the killers of his father and for reasons that don't need exploring at this juncture stayed.
But yes thank you for more links, I ended up down the broader folkways angle!
Such a good show! I'm surprised that any Americans are aware of Due South, TBH. Did it actually get aired anywhere in the US? And God, Paul Gross was such a hunk (and still is!). Most antithetical...
Such a good show! I'm surprised that any Americans are aware of Due South, TBH. Did it actually get aired anywhere in the US? And God, Paul Gross was such a hunk (and still is!). Most antithetical last name ever! So I don't blame you for requesting him to be the Mountie assigned to hunt you down for your crimes against Canada. ;)
I think I saw it on TNT or USA so syndication/reruns, mixed among things like Lois and Clark and every Law and Order series. But yeah and my partner saw it before we met so it definitely hit some...
I think I saw it on TNT or USA so syndication/reruns, mixed among things like Lois and Clark and every Law and Order series. But yeah and my partner saw it before we met so it definitely hit some of us.
And yes I had a huge crush on Fraser that was only about 25% due to him having a deaf half-wolf who lip reads. Dief was a huge selling point. Such competence. And the way he got flustered
If you enjoyed Due South then you will probably also enjoy Murdoch Mysteries too. It's a crime/detective shows that has a similar charm to it. BTW, here are a bunch of other great Canadian shows...
If you enjoyed Due South then you will probably also enjoy Murdoch Mysteries too. It's a crime/detective shows that has a similar charm to it.
I'm familiar with Kim's Convenience, La Femme Nikita, Little Mosque on the Prairie, Wynonna Earp, Orphan Black and Lost Girl by name alone, thanks for the recs! I'm awful at keeping up with TV...
I'm familiar with Kim's Convenience, La Femme Nikita, Little Mosque on the Prairie, Wynonna Earp, Orphan Black and Lost Girl by name alone, thanks for the recs!
I'm awful at keeping up with TV shows so few promises
Thanks! This is really interesting. I also found the work songs Wikipedia entry and spent a good bit of time crawling around further in the topics. "I love folkways and foodways and how they...
Thanks! This is really interesting. I also found the work songs Wikipedia entry and spent a good bit of time crawling around further in the topics.
"I love folkways and foodways and how they reconnect us to our land and each other". (!) As someone with a bit of anthropology in my background, that reminds me very much about what originally interested me in the field. I love that in the study of diversity (e.g. in music, food or connections with the land) we can find fundamental commonalities.
I don’t know about mass market appeal but I could definitely see this kind of thing becoming my standard background music while coding or working out in the gym. I’m not a huge audiophile though....
I don’t know about mass market appeal but I could definitely see this kind of thing becoming my standard background music while coding or working out in the gym. I’m not a huge audiophile though.
I’m kind of imagining an autogenerated continuous stream of music that is always running, always vaguely familiar, but never quite the same.
This is absolutely a thing, and has been for decades! My partner has a (diy) synthesizer set up, and he'll sometimes turn it on, boop some buttons, twist some knobs, plug in a few cables and then...
an autogenerated continuous stream of music that is always running, always vaguely familiar, but never quite the same.
This is absolutely a thing, and has been for decades! My partner has a (diy) synthesizer set up, and he'll sometimes turn it on, boop some buttons, twist some knobs, plug in a few cables and then just let it go, it's great. Wish I had links for you, but there are lots of people who stream this on YouTube and Twitch.
Like others, I'm quite uneasy about the future of music once that genie is fully out of the bottle. Having said that, I do enjoy making country songs out of inside jokes and embarrassing memories...
Like others, I'm quite uneasy about the future of music once that genie is fully out of the bottle. Having said that, I do enjoy making country songs out of inside jokes and embarrassing memories to send to my friends.
While I completely understand the prevailing wariness re: AI art, I'm honestly so excited to see where art goes once the novelty of AI has worn off and people start using it as a finely honed tool...
While I completely understand the prevailing wariness re: AI art, I'm honestly so excited to see where art goes once the novelty of AI has worn off and people start using it as a finely honed tool rather than an end in itself. Think photography or film and the evolutions there since their creation....
I love Noise, surrealism, Bizarro/Weird fiction... If it makes you feel kinda uncomfortable I'm here for it, and AI seems like the perfect tool for that. It's gonna be someone's medium*, maybe music, maybe visual art, maybe something else or a combination thereof, and it's gonna be dope haha.
*everyone has a medium. If you feel like you "can't art" it just means you haven't found your medium yet.
I like this because at points it feels like it's almost there, but it really isn't, it still has this weird unsettling quality, where it doesn't really make sense. Which is the same vibe I loved in early AI image generation and that's been going away as the models got better.
Can't imagine listening to this as I do to normal music, but I see a lot of potential in incorporating bits of these slightly weird unsettling qualities into actual music production. As opposed to AI generated images we've not been flooded with imperfect AI generated music yet, so it might happen despite the current wave of AI hate, because people won't recognize that this new weird vibe comes from there.
Friend, are you familiar with Noise/Experimental a la Coil, Nurse With Wound, Throbbing Gristle? There's a whole world of vaguely-unsettling, slightly off music out there, running the complete gamut from mostly-musical to literal static and machine noises. If you can find them, there are compilation albums called Release Your Mind from the 90s(?) that just blew me the fuck away in high school. Great place to start.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wJWksPWDKOc is fun. It's the same basic tune played for like 6 hours, but it slowly degrades in a way that is meant to simulate cognitive decline (at least, that's my understanding of it. I could be wrong about the artist's intent).
I am! Though Caretaker is a bit too depressing for me. :D
My friend listened to a big part of the whole thing on shrooms, which is something that I respect but have zero desire to ever do.
Though in my comment I was expecting that this AI weirdness would be integrated more to something like post-club or hyperpop, a "genre" that's already eclectic and based almost exclusively on remixing existing genre cliches with some nostalgia and various weird vibes thrown in, which has been a significant trend in the recent decade or so.
I've been experimenting with the Riffusion platform for creating GenAI music. It's been kind of a strange ride since you own the rights to distribute the songs you make if you subscribe to their platform. Aside from the ethical questions I have, I actually was able to generate a song I like and wonder what it means for the future of music. At the very least the future of trash top 40 music is certain to change. Would love to hear everyone's thoughts.
(in the interest of replying to your ask, not trying to attack you personally)
I'm not interested in AI music. My personal tastes are fairly eclectic anyway and more in the realm of Renaissance Faire/Sea Shanty/Folk/Pagan/Celtic and whatever else they're throwing into New Age.
But you could tell me a piece of AI music is in any or all of those sub genres and I'd still never click on it. It's not appealing in the slightest.
While in theory you "own" the rights, I'm not sure that's been settled by court cases. I think other art has been deemed uncopyrightable when generated by AI, so ymmv?
Absolutely, it's sort of an open-ended question, because based on what I am seeing it is going to be more difficult do distinguish 'organic' music from that created by genai down the line. I am going to keep messing around with this for fun, and the fact that I have been explicit in how this was produced all the way down to the artist persona and lyrical content, makes it at least feel a bit more 'authentic.' But honestly, if no one told me this song was made with AI I probably wouldn't be able to tell. The Riffusion ToS is the only reason I feel comfortable trying this and I verified it with their team as well.
The thing is, I don't think most people who use the service try to make music coming from the perspective of an AI, rather they are trying to 'pass' as human, which I feel much more ambivalent about.
I get that the site "grants" you the rights but if I steal the song and put it up elsewhere I'm not sure the courts agree. It's nuanced, and there probably isn't a clear ruling on every type of AI produced work, but IMO the trend is towards uncopyrightable. Which by itself will limit the reach into the commercial music sphere.
I don't get your difference in intent - everyone's trying to make music they like or they think will sell. "The perspective of an AI vs human" feels meaningless. The "AI" has no perspective, and the humanity is, IMO stripped from the music.
I'll simply continue to listen to groups I like and trust not to use AI, as I'm not motivated by the top whatever charts. I have tons of music pre-2010 if it becomes an inescapable issue.
Sure. From my end, I dont necessarily feel very litigious over something like this, so I'm not super concerned about that scenario. I also get why you or anyone else would not want to listen to AI music.
The only place I really disagree is that I truly think intent matters here. If someone wants to create art, AI could be seen as another instrument, just like samples became an instrument in the early days of EDM/hip hop. I do feel like I'm expressing myself with the ideas behind the songs, even though it takes far less work than being a "real" musician.
Whether the intent matters most in art is a debate going back a long time. There's human made music that I think sucks and
I can find AI music that sounds good, right before I get disappointed that it's AI and make sure it's off the recommended playlist.
But let's say instead of an AI you had an orchestra who you paid and had full control over. Perhaps it's the Renaissance and you have a lot of money. "Make me music" you tell the orchestra, "and make it sound like this" and they do but you don't like it, you tell them to make it happier or weirder or to have less cello or more cowbell, whatever. You didn't write the music, but you told the musicians what to do. Is that your composition or theirs?
To me it's theirs, no matter the "intent" you as the wealthy patron have, no matter how involved, since at no point do you write the score, you make suggestions and walk away to come back to a piece of music made by the musicians. You could own a performance of it, if you performed it, like a pop singer performing a song written and arranged for them. But not the song. I don't think it's more comparable to an instrument at all.
I get you're not planning to sue or whatever but it's a fundamental part of the debate about AI music.
I don't think the orchestra example is comparable to using AI. The orchestra's human musicians necessarily add their own perspective to the creative work because they are human. They have rights over their work. The wealthy patron in your example might be more similar to a film director, who does get artistic credit for a film, along with the other people who more directly created it (actors, cinematographers, visual effects team, etc.).
When using generative AI (or any other non-human tool), the AI itself does not have its own perspective because it doesn't have consciousness or a lived experience. The prompter, as the human, is the one adding their own intent and perspective.
I think a more accurate comparison would be something like, attaching pens to a tree and letting its windblown branches "draw" on paper. The tree is not "making art" because it's not a conscious being expressing its perspective. The person who conceptualized and set this up could be considered as the artist since they put their artistic intent into it even if they didn't actively create the pen marks. (My definition of what qualifies as "art" and who can be called the "artist" is based on Ellen Dissanayake's concept of "art as making special".)
That said, even if I'd consider both the "tree-drawings" and the AI-generated pieces to be art (and the conceptualizer / "prompter" to be the artist), I wouldn't be interested in engaging with the latter for ethical reasons. (Just because I accept that something is "art" and its creator an artist, doesn't mean I consider it good, interesting, or ethical.) I don't think anyone is being harmed by trees with pens, but I do think that generative AI is currently very harmful in a systemic way.
A director is absolutely actively working on a film and making their own choices in conversation with the principals and producers. I'd compare it more to an executive producer whose name is on the piece but did nothing. I used a scenario where there was total power by the patron over the orchestra to incompletely simulate an AI making music with now will of its own.
My perspective is that regardless of the fact AI cannot add its own input, neither the patron nor the prompter isn't creating the music. I'm not really saying it isn't "art" which is too subjective to be a definitive category. I'm saying it isn't the prompter's work regardless of that quality.
I don't think the tree with pens is even comparable in that light but using it its more that someone else built a tree with pens (by stealing all the pens from every artist in the world) and the prompter came across the tree and took credit for the piece created in their presence, because the way they stood impacted the wind to some small degree.
Which is why the intent of the "creator" - as highlighted by OP - isn't relevant IMO, because they didn't make anything.
I mean I did come up with the concept for the artist and song. I would say it's a bit more nuanced than coming up with "nothing." But I understand where you are coming from. I don't have the training and artistic chops to pull this off manually.
Sure, I was trying to work with the analogy the previous person used.
I also don't have this sort of training or vision, so I am not claiming any sort of superiority, just sharing my feelings on where this sort of "art" stands.
I think a person prompting generative AI art isn't necessarily "doing nothing". The process could be low-effort or high-effort. I do agree with the "pens stolen from artists" comparison though.
In a hypothetical scenario wherein generative AI tech is ethical (trained on public domain / properly licensed material; open source and accessible tech and not just a corporation profiting while harming society), I wouldn't have a problem with people using it as a tool for creating art.
As I said to OP I was trying to fit my metaphor into the one you suggested as I think "film director" is incorrect. Hence my original metaphor being more specific.
Even an ethical AI would still be comparable to the orchestra situation IMO and likely not copyrightable. Which was the point of my original point.
Huge, enormous tangent a head, you've been warned!
jokingly, but the essence is still ofc serious although not really important
I have not pegged you as a New Age adjacent person at all! Punk? Sure! Hippie? Sure! Antifa? Sure! LGBTQ-activist? Sure! Feminist? Sure! New Age? Nope, not at all!!
In my mind New Age is what was left when the hippie movement and ideas got recuperated1 by consumerism, etc.
I know it's a tiny, tiny thing, but I do think it's important to keep the distinctio.
Anyway.... Nothing (almost) to see here, move along! ;)
1: linking this, because it's a fairly new word for me so had to look it up anyway to make sure!
Oh I grew up on (Pop) Punk and still like it. Give me Showtunes and I'm there. I don't listen to enough music to honestly have a clue what would be considered Antifa or Queer activism music, etc.
My use of "New Age" was more me pulling the overarching, but meaningless, genre label that I saw used from the days of buying CDs up through Spotify. It's like how instead of Celtic could have said "global" and it would mean even less. But I got from say, Celtic Woman, to the more pagan/Ren Faire vibes when making playlists for larp characters, while hanging around my fellow polyamorous queer folks, many of whom are a flavor of pagan or another despite my rather annoyingly implacable agnosticism.
unnecessary elaboration and music links
My tastes run more into the
Creature of the Wood/Daughter of the Glade, wild hunt adjacent - give me a drum beat and the sense of a call to something out there in the dark and I'm there apparently.
But I also listen to Folk and Filk and more filk and Irish lilting hits my brain as hard as acapella in pop music.
I might listen to songs from Lord of the Rings, Pakistani Instrumental, Steven Universe, Fall Out Boy, Nightwish or Disney (I'm still obsessed with this cover of I2I). When I was still using Spotify my top songs were either from Encanto, Lo-fi African Beats, or Leave (Get Out) by Jo Jo (because I played it during move out non-stop. )
But I don't listen to a ton of music often so I tend to pop along from one to the other and don't really do a ton of playlists, etc.
Anyway that's my weirdness.
Oh, sorry, forgot we where talking about music and music genres...
I was talking about New Age as a "movement". I'm really out of the loop with all things music so no clue here, mb!
Really, nothing to see here!!
No worries at all!
Movement wise I'm definitely in the queer liberation/feminist realm, idk that I'm ...active enough to call myself antifa
Musically I'd say New Age is a genre from the 90s that combines World music with synths (sometimes?). I'm not sure that's a good definition, but typically when people think of New Age music they think of Enya (or they think of staying up late and seeing the commercial for Pure Moods on TV). It's kind of tenuously connected to New Age spirituality but it's its own thing. Also I associate a certain style of 90s fantasy art with New Age music, but I'm not sure if that's just me.
Honestly, it's a vibe that I really enjoy - it's very nostalgic to me, my mom was really into fantasy and loved Enya and Yanni, and I used to surf elfwood (a tragically defunct fantasy art website) and look at drawings of dragons and stuff with that music in the background.
New Age is a nebulous enough genre that it's possible DefinitelyNotAFae means something entirely different when she mentions it, but given that she also mentioned Celtic and Folk music and Ren Faire stuff I'm betting that the Enya/Celtic Woman adjacent stuff is on the right track.
More Celtic Woman than Enya but I'd say I'm in a niche of the overarching genre. Folk probably fits just as well but much of what I listen to straddles genres and I sort of forget about songs for a while and then come back with a "oh right that's great". Music isn't super important to me. Less Yanni, more sea shanties. (But like I'm not attached to the labels really, I just vibe)
Thanks for unlocking elfwood in my brain though!
That said I'm now back listening to the pop punk A Whole New Sound Disney covers album and anticipate being in this rabbit hole for a bit.
Yeah, it's a very broad, kind of nebulous genre so honestly you could just as easily have been listening to Tubular Bells on repeat 😅
Haha well idk why but that made me remember childhood obsessions with both Mannheim Steamroller and Adiemus
Those aren't related other than I liked them 😅
Oh my god, Adiemus is so good, lmao. I hadn't thought of that song in I don't know how long, but it was absolutely on that same Pure Moods commercial 🤣
Pure Moods (volume 1) is exactly what comes to mind when someone says “New Age”, probably because that was one of the first CDs my parents bought after we got our first CD player back in the mid-90s (which was actually a computer, funny enough). That CD got played countless times and I still listen to it occasionally now.
Honestly a good bit of the stuff on the first Pure Moods kind of holds up. Some of it is a little cheesy, but in a fun, nostalgic way imo.
I hadn't thought about Pure Moods for years til this.
I'm a bit more Hymn to Herne than Orinoco Flow but, ya know, sometimes you gotta sail away, sail away, sail away.
Sea shanties? This I must learn more about. Can you recommend anything in particular I can listen to? And is there anything about the history of sea shanties that you find shareably interesting?
So shanties popped back up after The Wellerman by Nathan Evans (not originally his) went viral on Tiktok. I've also heard The Last Shanty and Hoist the Colors played with a lot. Starting with those as a seed can get you a fun playlist, add in the Irish Rovers for more traditional music.
Obligatory: Most of the "shanties" you see are actually just sea songs or are modern inventions in the style of sea shanties/songs. It depends on if it's actually used for work. Actual shanties include Leave her Johnny (Leave Her) and Drunken Sailor. I'm not that picky.
I love the history of work songs and how they were ways of building community, of resistance and protest, and making heavy or dreary work lighter while, especially for shanties and similar, serving a purpose to the work itself. (If I could get another degree it would be in folklore) They're not always as fun to listen to as the more popular versions but they say so much about the culture and history of those singing
Similar interesting things
Wool Waulking songs (another)
Kumbaya/Come by Here coming from the Gullah Geechee culture as not a quiet chorus but an impassioned plea and possibly coded plans for escape.
And labor/protest songs! For miners and the Digger's Song
Classic Labor Songs from Smithsonian Folkways | Smithsonian Folkways Recordings
My apologies I know this is off topic of the main thread but I love folkways and foodways and how they reconnect us to our land and each other.
I'll give you credit for mentioning The Irish Rovers, another great Irish/Canadian folk band... but talking about sea shanties / maritime folk without mentioning Stan Rogers or Gordon Lightfoot is a capital crime up here in Canada! And must I remind you that Tildes is a Canadian site and so must follow Canadian laws!? ;)
Stan Rogers:
Barrett's Privateers
Northwest Passage
The Mary Ellen Carter
The Wreck of the Athens Queen
Fogarty's Cove
The Maid On the Shore
The Flowers Of Bermuda
The Woodbridge Dog Disaster (not maritime related, but still a great shanty-esque song! ;)
Gordon Lightfoot:
Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald
Ballad of Yarmouth Castle
Farewell Nova Scotia (which The Irish Rovers also sang)
cc: @dustylungs
I am proud of myself for writing it so shortly after waking up and making any sense at all!
But if you must, please send only one very specific constable from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to come get me. One who perhaps came to
ChicagoIllinois on the trail of the killers of his father and for reasons that don't need exploring at this juncture stayed.But yes thank you for more links, I ended up down the broader folkways angle!
Not shanties but for some unknown reason these came to mind
32 Down on the Robert Mackenzie
Ride Forever
Such a good show! I'm surprised that any Americans are aware of Due South, TBH. Did it actually get aired anywhere in the US? And God, Paul Gross was such a hunk (and still is!). Most antithetical last name ever! So I don't blame you for requesting him to be the Mountie assigned to hunt you down for your crimes against Canada. ;)
p.s. Speaking of music and Mounties. :P
I think I saw it on TNT or USA so syndication/reruns, mixed among things like Lois and Clark and every Law and Order series. But yeah and my partner saw it before we met so it definitely hit some of us.
And yes I had a huge crush on Fraser that was only about 25% due to him having a deaf half-wolf who lip reads. Dief was a huge selling point. Such competence. And the way he got flustered
ᨒ𖠰𖠰 ( ◜‿◝ )♡ 𖠰𖠰𖠰ᨒ𖠰
If you enjoyed Due South then you will probably also enjoy Murdoch Mysteries too. It's a crime/detective shows that has a similar charm to it.
BTW, here are a bunch of other great Canadian shows that I'm not sure ever made it to the US that are also worth watching too, IMO: Slings and Arrows (also starring Paul Gross), Corner Gas, Kim's Convenience, Little Mosque on the Prairie, La Femme Nikita, Wynonna Earp, Continuum, Lost Girl, Orphan Black, Travelers, Da Vinci's Inquest, Cold Squad. :)
I'm familiar with Kim's Convenience, La Femme Nikita, Little Mosque on the Prairie, Wynonna Earp, Orphan Black and Lost Girl by name alone, thanks for the recs!
I'm awful at keeping up with TV shows so few promises
Adam Neely had a good video about the TikTok Shanty trend, if you're into that sort of thing.
Thanks! Though this millennial was completely un-perplexed lol
Yeah I didn't find it that weird either, internet's gonna internet - that's all I needed to know.
Thanks! This is really interesting. I also found the work songs Wikipedia entry and spent a good bit of time crawling around further in the topics.
"I love folkways and foodways and how they reconnect us to our land and each other". (!) As someone with a bit of anthropology in my background, that reminds me very much about what originally interested me in the field. I love that in the study of diversity (e.g. in music, food or connections with the land) we can find fundamental commonalities.
I don’t know about mass market appeal but I could definitely see this kind of thing becoming my standard background music while coding or working out in the gym. I’m not a huge audiophile though.
I’m kind of imagining an autogenerated continuous stream of music that is always running, always vaguely familiar, but never quite the same.
This is absolutely a thing, and has been for decades! My partner has a (diy) synthesizer set up, and he'll sometimes turn it on, boop some buttons, twist some knobs, plug in a few cables and then just let it go, it's great. Wish I had links for you, but there are lots of people who stream this on YouTube and Twitch.
Like others, I'm quite uneasy about the future of music once that genie is fully out of the bottle. Having said that, I do enjoy making country songs out of inside jokes and embarrassing memories to send to my friends.
While I completely understand the prevailing wariness re: AI art, I'm honestly so excited to see where art goes once the novelty of AI has worn off and people start using it as a finely honed tool rather than an end in itself. Think photography or film and the evolutions there since their creation....
I love Noise, surrealism, Bizarro/Weird fiction... If it makes you feel kinda uncomfortable I'm here for it, and AI seems like the perfect tool for that. It's gonna be someone's medium*, maybe music, maybe visual art, maybe something else or a combination thereof, and it's gonna be dope haha.
*everyone has a medium. If you feel like you "can't art" it just means you haven't found your medium yet.