CEO of Song-Generating AI App Says People "Don't Enjoy" Making Music With Instruments
Mikey Shulman, the CEO of AI music generator company Suno AI, argued that most people don't enjoy the "majority of time" making music.
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He's right, though.
People don't want to spend all their time practicing instruments to improve their skills. This is already proven by electronic artists using samples and digital instruments instead of learning to play each instrument individually.
That doesn't mean we should use AI generated garbage instead of musicians, however. To me, the electronic producer is still an artist, just a different kind.
Boomer take. I'm a musician of two decades, got my degree in music. Sampling is as much an art and practice as playing a "traditional" instrument—I do both.
Are there lazy samplists? Sure, just as there are lazy guitarists. But watch this and tell me this isn't musicianship. https://inv.nadeko.net/watch?v=sKMDP-vDsTU
Gen-X with forty years of guitar here. I 100% agree. I recently picked up a NI Maschine and it is like learning to play a new instrument and far more difficult than I ever expected.
Invidious link didn't work... Do you have the youtube link?
Was wondering what you chose as an example.
I was thinking Avalanches. Or maybe Madlib. Or J Dilla.
Or maybe just RZA. Or DJ Shadow...
Man, I wish I could do the shit those people do. I know how it works in practice, but I just don't have the brain to do it. And yeah, anyone who denigrates it as an art form is clueless.
Invidious link didn't work... Do you have the youtube link?
Heads up for future reference: the video ID is the same between Youtube and Invidious, so you can just replace the invidious domain (inv.nadeko.net in this case) with youtube.com.
non-musicians ...
AKSHULLY, AS A MUSICIAN
lol
Dude, you're the one drawing the lines at who gets to call themselves a musician and who is just a "different kind" of artist. As an "akshul" musician, by your definition, I think you're mistaken and parroting some reactionary takes.
You're taking that in a negative way for some reason.
I just think of most electronic music artists as producers vs musicians because they control the entire production instead of only a part—it's not a negative thing, just an attempt to organize it internally.
This is how I understand what you're saying: Over here we have the "musicians," a title reserved for only those who play an instrument. On the other hand we have the "producers," who make music on a computer, without an "instrument."
But I say both make human music. And a computer can be an instrument. Drawing notes in MIDI is not much different than composing in Musescore. The producer is not unlike the classical composer, and I say both are musicians. And in a discussion on AI music vs. human music, why should we make a false dichotomy within human music anyway? "All models are wrong, but some are useful," said George E. P. Box, statistician.
I think people have taken you as arguing in bad faith. I, and I assume many others, would agree with you that Suno AI is bad. I think AI is ethically uncouth. But your original comment seems to be making a false equivalency between AI music and sampling. I think I understand what you mean better, but I still disagree with your premise and think it's a weak argument for fighting AI.
No, he is wrong.
People of every age learn how to play music everyday.
Practicing is absolutely enjoyable.
Using samples and electronic instruments only prove that people who love making music will find creative ways to do it.
Just because you don't like a certain type of music (there are hundreds if not thousands of different types of music) it doesn't mean people making that music are lazy.
Oh? And what type music do i not like?
Apparently electronic artists using samples and digital instruments.
Lmao thank you for proving that you're responding to assumptions you've made about me instead of my comment.
Various forms of electronic are among my favorite kinds of music, btw.
Nut Bleeding Dynamics by Mr. Bill is one of my favorite songs.
I'm just going off based on what you've said. Nothing more, nothing less.
Please explain again how people making electronic music are lazy.
Having the money and space for each instrument is a task itself.
Also for most instruments, the ability to practice without bothering others.
Though honestly never having the option to even try many instruments is probably why many people don't play an instrument. Digital is completely open, though I'd also say composing music is different than performing it.
Add restrictions to time/energy/mood, learning resources being paywalled, music theory being daunting, personal difficulties with certain instruments etc.
If you don't have much space (and/or money) i would recommend getting an inexpensive midi keyboard. They're extremely versatile.
I think that a more accurate statement is that some people don't enjoy using instruments. I mean, I don't, but I'm sure that there are people who do.
Obviously. Kinda crazy you thought my comment was about 100% of people.
You a musician? I love playing around on instruments, it's an end of itself not just a means to achieve some pre defined sound.
I used to be.
And you don't like playing your instrument? That might explain why you stopped.
Wtf? No, i loved it.
Why are you making assumptions?
You said you didn't want to spend time practicing your instrument to improve your skills, right? Or did you think that applied generally, not to you?
Then you took an arrow to the knee
Caught me lollygaggin 😭
What???
Can you not read?
Sorry what?
People who use instruments or computers to make music get full control, which is good and bad. You get to do exactly what you want, but your skills and creativity put a limit to what that might be. Also, doing that takes time.
Using AI to generate images and music puts you into the shoes of a producer. Now, you’re trying to separate the wheat from the chaff, but you don’t really have very much control over what the AI generates. It can be really frustrating, since you may have a vision, but the AI just doesn’t follow orders very well.
It’s a blanket generalization; those are almost always wrong.
Sure, there are SOME people that don’t want to learn how to play an instrument; just as there are some people who vehemently oppose the usage of any AI. I guess because there’s SOME people that vehemently oppose AI, everyone should learn how to play an instrument (see how blanket generalizations don’t work).
Yeah, that's me. I vehemently oppose AI and i don't even care about the use-case.
Time to learn how to play Oboe (according to this f'ers logic).
I think you meant people flipping purchased loop packs, and even then I disagree.
J Dilla made his music with samples. His rhythms are so complex that there are literal PH.Ds writing books about them.
Aphex Twin and Burial are another two artists that prove that it takes incredible skill and talent to cook samples and transform them into something new.
Also, if anyone is looking for more suggestions of amazing sample-based artists: Madlib, Avalanches, DJ Shadow...
It's an entirely different genre than what most people think of when they hear "electronic music."
You should go to a drum corps rehearsal or elite piano/violin recital. Shit or even an arcade hosting a bemani tournament. Like not one of the places where their parents are forcing them but somewhere where people are just doing it because they want to, even if it sucks sometimes to play for hours and hours and hours
I used to teach lessons and you do have a point, a lot of people want to be good without doing any work. That’s true of any endeavor that requires effort. A lot of people covet the reward without paying enough mind to the serious amount of effort that one undertakes to get to that point
But some people actually do want to achieve greatness, some people want a sense of accomplishment, some people want a deeper understanding of their instrument, etc
Even if you’re an electronic producer that only ever uses the piano roll you would still benefit from a better understanding of theory and improvisation. This doesn’t come from nothing; it comes from grinding. You don’t necessarily need to read theory books and practice piano of course, you will gain a sense of these from writing songs and getting feedback, but you still need to write and/or play a lot
The rise in electronic artists is arguably more to do with accessibility. literally everyone has a computing device and free music making software is relatively abundant, instruments are expensive and loud, practice space is hard to come by especially in urban environments. Additionally electronic music has a huge factor of cultural relevance in terms of trends from production styles being popular across genres.
AI music is a tool and it’s impressive but the results are mostly derivative, which makes sense given how it works. it would be really cool to see more resources invested into spaces for people who actually wanted to pursue the arts to be able to do so as this is likely the way music (and other art) truly moves forward and actually innovates instead of just hashing out the same tired shit
Your final paragraph proves you didn't even read my comment. lol
Sorry you wasted your time writing that. :(
? I read your comment.
Do you somehow conflate “we should still use musicians” and “while ai is an impressive tech demo the resources that are being gobbled up by it could be better allocated to spaces for people who actually want to devote themselves to their art”.
I bet your music is wonderful with tons of nuance given your need to have things spelled out for you and your apathy for honing your craft
Honestly I kind of get his point.
I fooled around with some basic beat making software back in the day and was having a lot of fun, so I stepped up to entry level producing software and HOLY SHIT there was a learning cliff I had to climb. It sucked all the fun out of it and I got bored really fast.
People do still want to create and make music not learn how to use a piece of software.
I think people enjoy musical instruments. Digital music really hasn't caught on much. There are and always will be plenty of musicians playing traditional instruments of all kinds.
Digital music really hasn’t caught on much.
I just found out that modular synths are a thing and it looks pretty fun to me! It's like half music and half electrical engineering, LOL.
(Don't get me wrong, I knew about keyboard synthesizers and whatnot, but the concept of making music with a bunch of oscillators and random voltage generators patched together is 🤯.)
(Also, shout out to !obscureinstruments@sh.itjust.works for putting me on the Youtube random walk that lead to that video.)
You will love the in-browser modular synths i found a while back. i think i bookmarked the page.
I'll see if i can find it.
Edit: Found it immediately!
Here is a page with some virtual instruments and there are a couple modular synths down the page:
https://www.hongkiat.com/blog/virtual-instrument-web-browser/
I've been messing around with VCV rack recently, which is an (open source!) software that simulates modular synthesis, with a library of modules from different vendors. It's been delightful :)
After watching that video I ran across Cardinal, which is apparently a wrapper around VCV Rack that adds back the ability to be run as a plugin that VCV itself locks behind the "Pro" subscription. It can also run straight from your browser, so that's how I've been trying it out so far.
If money and space were no option, I would 100% buy a Buchla synth and have it take up an entire room. Shit would look like the the Bridge of the Starship Enterprise.
Digital music hasn't caught on? Since when?
Electronic music is a different artform, but it's still fun and satisfying for the people who make it. Plus, I'd argue that most people who make electronic music do it because they like that type of music, not because they don't want to learn the violin or whatever.
