Can AI really write music you might want to listen to?

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a day ago

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I want to disagree with Garry Linnell.
In his last Echidna, he was of the opinion that music generated by AI was fine.
"If a song created by an algorithm can break your heart or, better still, heal it, perhaps music and anything else we consider art still has a future after all in this increasingly artificial world of ours," he concluded elegantly but, in my opinion, wrongly.
To my mind and ear, you can't divorce music from the human experience. It has to be authentic. A machine might write a love song, and it might be a sweet sound - but it will fall on my deaf ears. I'm not interested. Good music isn't just a string of notes. It has context and history.
As an analogy, I think of the singer Joss Stone. She is phenomenally successful and belts out a good sound. She has her fans (in their millions) but soul music demands, well, soul - and that comes from an upbringing and a background.
I met her as a sweet English teenager (her, not me) when she was starting out and trying to make a name for herself. It struck me then that she had a fabulous voice, throaty and growly, similar to Aretha Franklin's. The resonance was with the great soul singers of that black America where soul came from suffering.
But Joss was a nice white girl from middle-class England. Aretha Franklin was born in a wooden shack in Tennessee in 1942 when black people risked death if they displeased a white man by, say, looking at him the wrong way or, even worse, at his wife. Soul music came from Aretha's experience.
So, what has that got to do with artificially generated songs?
The essence of music is that it needs to be authentic. It needs to reflect the human condition. It has to ring true. The Beach Boys were authentic. The Monkees were an inauthentic creation. AI does inauthentic creation at warp speed.
It relies on copying the past. It relies on seeing what love songs have said and done and then varying it and replicating it. The result may be tuneful but it has no human resonance - no meaning, in the broad sense.
Tell AI to write a new Bob Dylan song and the result would fool the ear - but not the mind.
Musicians have always taken music from the past and developed it. Mozart did it. So did the Rolling Stones. All that is fine and creative.
But AI doesn't quite do that. In a way, it mimics. It creates a kind of muzak. I'm not sure that AI could have created punk - or the later Beatles stuff, because they were both too different from previous music.
One day, probably soon, someone will ask AI to create a Beethoven symphony, and the result will sound like a Beethoven symphony - but it won't be a Beethoven symphony, coming from that time, from Ludwig van's human experience. Listening to it might pass a pleasant hour but no more than that. It would be shallow.
Take another example. If you were getting married and your best friend wrote an emotional, moving poem for the wedding, would it be just as moving if you found out later that it had been generated by AI in a machine?
HAVE YOUR SAY: So, it's a choice. Is Garry right or am I right? Send your thoughts to [e-mail] . By the way, I'm writing the Echidna for Tuesday but I promise to be fair-minded in selecting your views.
SHARE THE LOVE: If you enjoy The Echidna, forward it to a friend so they can sign up, too.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:
- Australian actor Julian McMahon, known for his roles in Nip/Tuck, Charmed and Home and Away, has died aged 56 after a private battle with cancer.
- Israel will send a delegation to Qatar for talks on a possible Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal.
- US President Donald Trump says he will start talking to China about a possible TikTok deal, saying the United States "pretty much" has a deal on the sale of the short-video app.
THEY SAID IT: "Don't look at me in that tone of voice." - Dorothy Parker
YOU SAID IT: Rick said: "AI music is entirely about making money. Therefore, I believe it to be unnecessary. The Monkees may have acted (it's a stretch to call them actors), but they were actual musicians."
Susan was more open to AI-generated music: "My eclectic music education began when I was very little, and my likes have few boundaries. My response is visceral. If it appeals, terrific. If not, I move on."
Alex was worried about the implications of AI for human music-makers: "One big reason for concern about AI composition is that companies have trained their AI on songs written by humans, without compensation: AI developers have consistently massively infringed intellectual property rights, and that is not fair."
Elaine said: "AI does not 'float my boat' and reading how much water (which is vital for our existence} is needed to generate this device is very worrying. With AI entering so many aspects of our lives, which is most important - humanity or AI?"
This is a sample of The Echidna newsletter sent out each weekday morning. To sign up for FREE, go to theechidna.com.au
I want to disagree with Garry Linnell.
In his last Echidna, he was of the opinion that music generated by AI was fine.
"If a song created by an algorithm can break your heart or, better still, heal it, perhaps music and anything else we consider art still has a future after all in this increasingly artificial world of ours," he concluded elegantly but, in my opinion, wrongly.
To my mind and ear, you can't divorce music from the human experience. It has to be authentic. A machine might write a love song, and it might be a sweet sound - but it will fall on my deaf ears. I'm not interested. Good music isn't just a string of notes. It has context and history.
As an analogy, I think of the singer Joss Stone. She is phenomenally successful and belts out a good sound. She has her fans (in their millions) but soul music demands, well, soul - and that comes from an upbringing and a background.
I met her as a sweet English teenager (her, not me) when she was starting out and trying to make a name for herself. It struck me then that she had a fabulous voice, throaty and growly, similar to Aretha Franklin's. The resonance was with the great soul singers of that black America where soul came from suffering.
But Joss was a nice white girl from middle-class England. Aretha Franklin was born in a wooden shack in Tennessee in 1942 when black people risked death if they displeased a white man by, say, looking at him the wrong way or, even worse, at his wife. Soul music came from Aretha's experience.
So, what has that got to do with artificially generated songs?
The essence of music is that it needs to be authentic. It needs to reflect the human condition. It has to ring true. The Beach Boys were authentic. The Monkees were an inauthentic creation. AI does inauthentic creation at warp speed.
It relies on copying the past. It relies on seeing what love songs have said and done and then varying it and replicating it. The result may be tuneful but it has no human resonance - no meaning, in the broad sense.
Tell AI to write a new Bob Dylan song and the result would fool the ear - but not the mind.
Musicians have always taken music from the past and developed it. Mozart did it. So did the Rolling Stones. All that is fine and creative.
But AI doesn't quite do that. In a way, it mimics. It creates a kind of muzak. I'm not sure that AI could have created punk - or the later Beatles stuff, because they were both too different from previous music.
One day, probably soon, someone will ask AI to create a Beethoven symphony, and the result will sound like a Beethoven symphony - but it won't be a Beethoven symphony, coming from that time, from Ludwig van's human experience. Listening to it might pass a pleasant hour but no more than that. It would be shallow.
Take another example. If you were getting married and your best friend wrote an emotional, moving poem for the wedding, would it be just as moving if you found out later that it had been generated by AI in a machine?
HAVE YOUR SAY: So, it's a choice. Is Garry right or am I right? Send your thoughts to [e-mail] . By the way, I'm writing the Echidna for Tuesday but I promise to be fair-minded in selecting your views.
SHARE THE LOVE: If you enjoy The Echidna, forward it to a friend so they can sign up, too.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:
- Australian actor Julian McMahon, known for his roles in Nip/Tuck, Charmed and Home and Away, has died aged 56 after a private battle with cancer.
- Israel will send a delegation to Qatar for talks on a possible Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal.
- US President Donald Trump says he will start talking to China about a possible TikTok deal, saying the United States "pretty much" has a deal on the sale of the short-video app.
THEY SAID IT: "Don't look at me in that tone of voice." - Dorothy Parker
YOU SAID IT: Rick said: "AI music is entirely about making money. Therefore, I believe it to be unnecessary. The Monkees may have acted (it's a stretch to call them actors), but they were actual musicians."
Susan was more open to AI-generated music: "My eclectic music education began when I was very little, and my likes have few boundaries. My response is visceral. If it appeals, terrific. If not, I move on."
Alex was worried about the implications of AI for human music-makers: "One big reason for concern about AI composition is that companies have trained their AI on songs written by humans, without compensation: AI developers have consistently massively infringed intellectual property rights, and that is not fair."
Elaine said: "AI does not 'float my boat' and reading how much water (which is vital for our existence} is needed to generate this device is very worrying. With AI entering so many aspects of our lives, which is most important - humanity or AI?"
This is a sample of The Echidna newsletter sent out each weekday morning. To sign up for FREE, go to theechidna.com.au
I want to disagree with Garry Linnell.
In his last Echidna, he was of the opinion that music generated by AI was fine.
"If a song created by an algorithm can break your heart or, better still, heal it, perhaps music and anything else we consider art still has a future after all in this increasingly artificial world of ours," he concluded elegantly but, in my opinion, wrongly.
To my mind and ear, you can't divorce music from the human experience. It has to be authentic. A machine might write a love song, and it might be a sweet sound - but it will fall on my deaf ears. I'm not interested. Good music isn't just a string of notes. It has context and history.
As an analogy, I think of the singer Joss Stone. She is phenomenally successful and belts out a good sound. She has her fans (in their millions) but soul music demands, well, soul - and that comes from an upbringing and a background.
I met her as a sweet English teenager (her, not me) when she was starting out and trying to make a name for herself. It struck me then that she had a fabulous voice, throaty and growly, similar to Aretha Franklin's. The resonance was with the great soul singers of that black America where soul came from suffering.
But Joss was a nice white girl from middle-class England. Aretha Franklin was born in a wooden shack in Tennessee in 1942 when black people risked death if they displeased a white man by, say, looking at him the wrong way or, even worse, at his wife. Soul music came from Aretha's experience.
So, what has that got to do with artificially generated songs?
The essence of music is that it needs to be authentic. It needs to reflect the human condition. It has to ring true. The Beach Boys were authentic. The Monkees were an inauthentic creation. AI does inauthentic creation at warp speed.
It relies on copying the past. It relies on seeing what love songs have said and done and then varying it and replicating it. The result may be tuneful but it has no human resonance - no meaning, in the broad sense.
Tell AI to write a new Bob Dylan song and the result would fool the ear - but not the mind.
Musicians have always taken music from the past and developed it. Mozart did it. So did the Rolling Stones. All that is fine and creative.
But AI doesn't quite do that. In a way, it mimics. It creates a kind of muzak. I'm not sure that AI could have created punk - or the later Beatles stuff, because they were both too different from previous music.
One day, probably soon, someone will ask AI to create a Beethoven symphony, and the result will sound like a Beethoven symphony - but it won't be a Beethoven symphony, coming from that time, from Ludwig van's human experience. Listening to it might pass a pleasant hour but no more than that. It would be shallow.
Take another example. If you were getting married and your best friend wrote an emotional, moving poem for the wedding, would it be just as moving if you found out later that it had been generated by AI in a machine?
HAVE YOUR SAY: So, it's a choice. Is Garry right or am I right? Send your thoughts to [e-mail] . By the way, I'm writing the Echidna for Tuesday but I promise to be fair-minded in selecting your views.
SHARE THE LOVE: If you enjoy The Echidna, forward it to a friend so they can sign up, too.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:
- Australian actor Julian McMahon, known for his roles in Nip/Tuck, Charmed and Home and Away, has died aged 56 after a private battle with cancer.
- Israel will send a delegation to Qatar for talks on a possible Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal.
- US President Donald Trump says he will start talking to China about a possible TikTok deal, saying the United States "pretty much" has a deal on the sale of the short-video app.
THEY SAID IT: "Don't look at me in that tone of voice." - Dorothy Parker
YOU SAID IT: Rick said: "AI music is entirely about making money. Therefore, I believe it to be unnecessary. The Monkees may have acted (it's a stretch to call them actors), but they were actual musicians."
Susan was more open to AI-generated music: "My eclectic music education began when I was very little, and my likes have few boundaries. My response is visceral. If it appeals, terrific. If not, I move on."
Alex was worried about the implications of AI for human music-makers: "One big reason for concern about AI composition is that companies have trained their AI on songs written by humans, without compensation: AI developers have consistently massively infringed intellectual property rights, and that is not fair."
Elaine said: "AI does not 'float my boat' and reading how much water (which is vital for our existence} is needed to generate this device is very worrying. With AI entering so many aspects of our lives, which is most important - humanity or AI?"
This is a sample of The Echidna newsletter sent out each weekday morning. To sign up for FREE, go to theechidna.com.au
I want to disagree with Garry Linnell.
In his last Echidna, he was of the opinion that music generated by AI was fine.
"If a song created by an algorithm can break your heart or, better still, heal it, perhaps music and anything else we consider art still has a future after all in this increasingly artificial world of ours," he concluded elegantly but, in my opinion, wrongly.
To my mind and ear, you can't divorce music from the human experience. It has to be authentic. A machine might write a love song, and it might be a sweet sound - but it will fall on my deaf ears. I'm not interested. Good music isn't just a string of notes. It has context and history.
As an analogy, I think of the singer Joss Stone. She is phenomenally successful and belts out a good sound. She has her fans (in their millions) but soul music demands, well, soul - and that comes from an upbringing and a background.
I met her as a sweet English teenager (her, not me) when she was starting out and trying to make a name for herself. It struck me then that she had a fabulous voice, throaty and growly, similar to Aretha Franklin's. The resonance was with the great soul singers of that black America where soul came from suffering.
But Joss was a nice white girl from middle-class England. Aretha Franklin was born in a wooden shack in Tennessee in 1942 when black people risked death if they displeased a white man by, say, looking at him the wrong way or, even worse, at his wife. Soul music came from Aretha's experience.
So, what has that got to do with artificially generated songs?
The essence of music is that it needs to be authentic. It needs to reflect the human condition. It has to ring true. The Beach Boys were authentic. The Monkees were an inauthentic creation. AI does inauthentic creation at warp speed.
It relies on copying the past. It relies on seeing what love songs have said and done and then varying it and replicating it. The result may be tuneful but it has no human resonance - no meaning, in the broad sense.
Tell AI to write a new Bob Dylan song and the result would fool the ear - but not the mind.
Musicians have always taken music from the past and developed it. Mozart did it. So did the Rolling Stones. All that is fine and creative.
But AI doesn't quite do that. In a way, it mimics. It creates a kind of muzak. I'm not sure that AI could have created punk - or the later Beatles stuff, because they were both too different from previous music.
One day, probably soon, someone will ask AI to create a Beethoven symphony, and the result will sound like a Beethoven symphony - but it won't be a Beethoven symphony, coming from that time, from Ludwig van's human experience. Listening to it might pass a pleasant hour but no more than that. It would be shallow.
Take another example. If you were getting married and your best friend wrote an emotional, moving poem for the wedding, would it be just as moving if you found out later that it had been generated by AI in a machine?
HAVE YOUR SAY: So, it's a choice. Is Garry right or am I right? Send your thoughts to [e-mail] . By the way, I'm writing the Echidna for Tuesday but I promise to be fair-minded in selecting your views.
SHARE THE LOVE: If you enjoy The Echidna, forward it to a friend so they can sign up, too.
IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:
- Australian actor Julian McMahon, known for his roles in Nip/Tuck, Charmed and Home and Away, has died aged 56 after a private battle with cancer.
- Israel will send a delegation to Qatar for talks on a possible Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal.
- US President Donald Trump says he will start talking to China about a possible TikTok deal, saying the United States "pretty much" has a deal on the sale of the short-video app.
THEY SAID IT: "Don't look at me in that tone of voice." - Dorothy Parker
YOU SAID IT: Rick said: "AI music is entirely about making money. Therefore, I believe it to be unnecessary. The Monkees may have acted (it's a stretch to call them actors), but they were actual musicians."
Susan was more open to AI-generated music: "My eclectic music education began when I was very little, and my likes have few boundaries. My response is visceral. If it appeals, terrific. If not, I move on."
Alex was worried about the implications of AI for human music-makers: "One big reason for concern about AI composition is that companies have trained their AI on songs written by humans, without compensation: AI developers have consistently massively infringed intellectual property rights, and that is not fair."
Elaine said: "AI does not 'float my boat' and reading how much water (which is vital for our existence} is needed to generate this device is very worrying. With AI entering so many aspects of our lives, which is most important - humanity or AI?"