PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Off-Topic BIAB & AI

Rusty, I don't think anyone is saying AI will prevent you from tinkering with music (I'm certainly not saying that and it won't stop me from tinkering). Just like the adoption of cars haven't prevented me or you from walking.

I drive AND I walk.

This isn't a Boolean choice between AI with no tinkering vs no AI with all the tinkering you want. We will have both.

And if some point PG Music adds the AI I'd like to see which is real-time creation of custom styles based on an audio input like Riders of the Storm, then I could see my tinkering actually increase because I'd be producing the style of music that's actually in my head.

I'm not talking about ChatGPT creating a song for me, rather it's saying "ChatGPT assemble the best collection of great studio muscians from BiaB for the specific style of music I want". Then, once the style is created the tinkering begins.

So you want software to:

Write your lyrics
Write your melody
Pick the style
Sing the song

And what is your role in this creative process? Putting your name on it?

Do you know anything whatsoever about music? Do you even play an instrument? Have you ever written a poem? A short story? A shopping list?

Wow. You want to do NOTHING and claim to be a songwriter?

I have apparently wasted 67 years of my life learning music, how to read it, how to play it on 3 instruments, how to write lyrics, arrangement, production, engineering...

So, posers, pretenders and wannabes then?

When it comes to music, be in or be out.

Take that a step further Misha, and think about how much more deeply appreciated that card would be if the sender took the perfect picture of the perfect sunset, printed it on card stock, and wrote the verse that went inside.

All of that is what the wannabe types want to remove from the creative process and let a computer do it for them. The turn this thread has taken has done 2 things. The first is that a lot of people don't understand what AI really is. The second is that people with no talent want to crash the party that is exclusive to real music creators.

Aren't the welding robots in car factories a form of AI? They have been around for decades.
How about car engines that automatically adjust fuel and air mixtures based on what the engine air sensors dictate?
You have a Roomba? You can set a timer to start that device and vacuum your living room by itself.

Anything automated uses some form of AI. AI isn't just a computer thing.

ChatGPT created lyrics? To those who sing the praises of tings like ChatGPT, let me offer this thought to you.

On your significant other's next birthday, have ChatGPT write lyrics for a song rather than YOU telling the story of what they mean to you. Make sure you tell her that you allowed a computer to do that rather than doing it yourself. Let me know how that works out. I just hope you bought the 7 foot couch and not the 5 foot loveseat.

Songs are stories set to music. Nothing can tell your story better than you can. Certainly not a web page.

There are songs on my CD were all written after women dumped me. That is a very real, raw emotion that nobody could express but me. Here is a +++LINK+++ to a shared Google Drive folder with 5 songs that are very personal to me. If you choose to, listen to these songs and let me know by PM if you think ChatGPT could have told those stories as well as my own hand did.

This is a song you write yourself.



This is a song you write with all kinds of AI.



I mean, they are both flowers, right? LOL!!!

Actually.... My efforts would look more like the bottom one

I mean no disrespect but one can learn a lot about music by creating your own custom tracks. For me creating music that I had a heavy hand is is very rewarding, regardless if anyone likes it or not.

For it to mean anything the arts MUST be created by humans. AI can be a helping hand but a human must play the biggest part.

YMMV

Oh my word Eddie, this type of attitude “The second is that people with no talent want to crash the party that is exclusive to real music creators” is exactly what I stand against. It puts people off even trying. Who exactly is entitled to call themselves “real music creators”.

BassThumper. I am also on that list of people whose jobs may become obsolete with AI. I am a business analyst BUT am already using AI in my job to produce documentation at a hugely increased rate (and with a much better quality) so maybe while other business analysts are busy lamenting how AI put them out of work I will become valuable in another role entirely. Bring it on.

Misha; you actually made my point with this statement “ What is your "story", your "feelings", "you" in it?” that is exactly it. Everyone has a story that they can tell, or write a poem or draw a picture about. What they have not been able to do, until now, is make a song about it.

I have found that I can produce better quality with AI.

(Verse 1)
[G] In a painting of flowers on a [C] blue background
[G] I found a beauty that [C] knows no bound
[Am] Close up of a flower, so [C] delicate and [G] rare
[Am] Nature's masterpiece, beyond [C] compare

(Chorus)
[G] Oh, the colors they [C] blend and they [G] bloom
[Am] Like a symphony, a [C] sweet perfume
[G] Flowers on a blue [C] background, they [G] speak
[Am] Of love and joy, the [C] language they keep

(Verse 2)
[G] In a painting of flowers on a [C] blue background
[G] I see the wonders of [C] life unbound
[Am] Close up of a flower, its [C] petals unfold
[G] A story of beauty that [C] never grows old

(Chorus)
[G] Oh, the colors they [C] blend and they [G] bloom
[Am] Like a symphony, a [C] sweet perfume
[G] Flowers on a blue [C] background, they [G] speak
[Am] Of love and joy, the [C] language they keep

(Bridge)
[Am] And as I gaze upon this [C] canvas so fine
[G] I'm reminded of the wonders of [C] time
[Am] Each brushstroke tells a story, [C] sings a song
[G] Of nature's beauty, where I [C] belong

(Chorus)
[G] Oh, the colors they [C] blend and they [G] bloom
[Am] Like a symphony, a [C] sweet perfume
[G] Flowers on a blue [C] background, they [G] speak
[Am] Of love and joy, the [C] language they keep

(Outro)
[G] In a painting of flowers on a [C] blue background
[G] I find solace, peace, and [C] love profound
[Am] Close up of a flower, a [C] moment in time
[G] Forever captured in this [C] rhyme

Courtesy of LyricLab in about 2 seconds

Let's see AI write something like:

"There must be some way out of here," said the joker to the thief,
"There's too much confusion, I can't get no relief
Businessmen, they drink my wine, plowmen dig my earth
None of them along the line know what any of it is worth."

"No reason to get excited", the thief, he kindly spoke,
"There are many here among us who feel that life is but a joke
But you and I, we've been through that, and this is not our fate
So let us not talk falsely now, the hour is getting late".

All along the watchtower, princes kept the view
While all the women came and went, barefoot servants, too.
Outside in the distance a wildcat did growl
Two riders were approaching, the wind began to howl. "

Byron. It won’t be able to write something like that but it can give you a head start.

No disrespect taken and all is well. I happen to agree that "one can learn a lot about music by creating your own custom tracks." These tracks could be created by assembling individual humans to play each individual instrument, or by using current versions of BiaB to create the tracks, or by using an enhanced version of BiaB that is able to build a custom style that is then used to create the track, or by some combination of the above. This list of approaches can also be expanded if other tools are considered.

In a similar way, one can learn a lot about math by using pencil and paper, utilizing a handbook, using a high-end mathematics program or using a math AI tool.

I also agree that "AI can be a helping hand". This, in fact, is how I view AI in general. It's just another [powerful] tool in the toolbox.

I applaud Joanne for being bold, brave, and forward-thinking regarding AI technology. I can tell she is not the least bit fearful of it.

Here is a quote I like to think about.

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." -Thomas Watson

Well I think there is no stopping AI as regards music making, it will in the end be accepted by more and more musicians as it becomes less expensive and more common.

Whether PGMusic intends to put Ai into their products will be a decision for them, but other than licencing reasons and what it would cost them, they could build ChatGpt into BIAB in a future edition.

Don't see any reason as other Ai tools become available, and if it was cost effective for Pgmusic to do so, they might be added too.

I think as long as the old way of creating a song is retained in BIAB, everyone should be happy.

I wrote a little song with the following lines,

"Everyday is different in life's roller coaster ride,
And it's so good to have you right here by my side"

I didn't like the last line for various reasons, so asked ChatGpt to come up with something different. It gave me this,


"Everyday is different in life's roller coaster ride,
With it's ups and downs twists and turns, you're always on my side"

Which I felt better with, so I used it.

Winner with you.

And that.... is exactly how I use AI in my musical compositions.

It quickly gives me a number of ideas from the few brief sentences I provide as guidance. It provides a lot of ideas in the form of verses and choruses. Some of which are not relevant in the course of what I'm working on, some of which are perfect or nearly so, and others that spark new thoughts and directions for ME to take in putting the song together.

Will AI be able to write another ALL ALONG THE WATCHTOWER, or TANGLED UP IN BLUE? I have no doubt that it will. Maybe not now.... but then again the automobile was a very crude, noisy, slow, and unreliable vehicle when it was first introduced. AI is learning exponentially and there's no telling where we'll be in another 3 to 5 years with it.

In the end, when you hear a song, you won't know how it was created.
And why should you care?
Either you like the song or you don't.

Whether someone spent hours on their own or in a collaboration, hired professional musicians,
rented a recording studio, paid to have it distributed OR

spent fifteen minutes with AI, pumped it out and put it up on the net,
if it's a song you'd like to listen to, does it really matter how it got to your ears?

LLOYD S

@JoanneCooper Couldn't YOU have written those horrible lyrics?

Do you know at all what prosody is?

Those AI lyrics completely lack prosody and are the kind of sappy, pappy nonsense that makes me laugh.

I would be absolutely embarrassed to put a song out with those lyrics. There's no emotion, no story, no feeling. A well written song has to be both intellectual and visceral. It has to make you think AND make you feel. Those AI lyrics are nothing more than what happens when somebody sits with a rhyming dictionary on their lap and spits out any sort of nonsense that does nothing more than rhyme.

As far as discouraging people from trying, use cooking as an analogy. Not everybody can cook, and many will NEVER be able to cook. It is a skill, and an art form, that you either have the aptitude for or not. I am a very good cook, but I had the benefit of being married to a woman who was a food writer at our newspaper and she taught me about layering flavors, getting just the right amount of seasoning on/in the food, and cooking things to the right temperature. (Every had chicken that didn't hit 165 degrees farenheit? If so, did you enjoy the food poisoning that likely followed?)

So... layering flavors = layering sounds.
Proper seasoning = voicing chords and looking for embellished chord substitutions.
Correct temp = meaningful lyrics that tell a story, preferably one from your own life that touches people.
And if you eat dessert, dessert = arrangement.

I put up a link that either nobody cared to click or nobody cared to comment in PM. I believe that I am a strong lyric writer. You may not agree, as is your choice. But when you listen to my songs you get to hear a story from my life. I will never write a "croon moon spoon June" song. Todd Rundgren once told me that "I Saw The Light" was supposed to be a joke because he wrote down a bunch of words that rhymed and then wrote a song using them. Yet it is one of most well known songs. Irony can be so ironic.

Disclaimer: This next statement is just what I think.

I don't like it when people want to take shortcuts because it devalues music education, and that is disrespectful to the old skool musicians who have been at this for 60+ years. Put in the time. Learn the CRAFT and THEN worry about turning out (bad) songs just to feel good about yourself. There are too many Cowboy Chord guitar strummers out there who never leave the 3rd fret and have no ability to ever play a solo.

And every song sounds the same. Exactly 3:34 in duration, mentioning drinking wine, dirt roads and pickup trucks, sung by a bad girl singer that sounds like she has a, uh, well, something, stuck in her throat.

Music of today stinks. It stropped being about the music so many years ago. Now it focused on the girl singer being hot, wearing outrageous outfits, and putting on a stage show.

The Beatles, Chicago, The Eagles... they pretty much just stood by their mics and played and sang great songs at the highest level. That's when music was music. Now the music is secondary.

Eddie. Maybe making music is more about personalisation than prosody?

+1
Move forward confidently into the AI future while retain the best of the past.
It's not a Boolean choice, we can have both.

So you don't really know what prosody is then?

I am out of this discussion. Music is to be revered. All of the shortcutting is just disrespectful of the art. Music is about hard work and dedication, not letting AI write your lyrics and letting software write, sing and play the songs. Very few of you seem to grasp that idea of respect.

Bye.