Each week, I first summarize my adventures in making music. Lately, I have been composing tracks for the Disquiet Junto, the Naviar Records Haiku Music Challenge and, this year for the first time, Weekly Beats. I also have other projects and collaborations I will share occasionally.
I also bring together the perspective I shared in posts on social media (currently Mastodon) about the music industry in the section: Music + Tech + Law. These thoughts are intended to come from me as a consumer of, and participant in, the entertainment business. However, I cannot completely separate the thoughts I generate from the part of my brain I use for my day job as a lawyer experienced in technology contracts and intellectual property.
My Music
The prompt for Disquiet Junto Project 0630 was to “count your tools in advance of deploying them” and then to stick to that limited number of tools. The prompt included the example of using the iOS app, AUM, plus three audio apps. I took this example literally because I have had AUM for some time and many great audio apps, but have not been able to make myself finish a track on my iPad. So, I decided that the example was a call to action for me. I happened to have three audio apps that I have been meaning to use in some way: Moog’s Animoog Z, Model 15 and Model D. I have had these apps since Moog gave them away during the pandemic, but I never finished a track with any of them. I used LK in Matrix mode as the MIDI sequencer (I’m not sure if that counts as an additional DAW, but I allowed it anyway) and created four scenes on three tracks, imported some random MIDI chords into each clip, then adjusted the notes and clip lengths until the scenes sounded interesting. I then gave each clip a follow action of “ANY” and set them off. I did more than a few takes bringing the levels up and down, but decided I would allow myself three effects, one for each track. I used Audiomodern’s Panflow, Gatelab and Filterstep. After a few more takes, I decided to finish on my last one. Another commitment I made to myself before finishing is that I wanted to complete the upload and posting process on my iPad too and I was able to follow the instructions in AudioShare and upload through the SoundCloud app. I wanted to do a project like this for a long time now and this prompt was the kick in the pants I needed.
I also submitted a track for Week 5 of Weekly Beats. You can listen to it on my Weekly Beats profile or on SoundCloud. For this track, I aimed to create a minimal house vibe while keeping things simple in order to maintain a consistent weekly pace throughout the year. Despite my intention to keep it minimal, I ended up with several layers in the track, but I am quite satisfied with the final result.
Music + Tech + Law
I was skeptical as I read through this article that the resulting "swapped beat" would be the result of scraped data and compete with human beat makers. As I read on, I learned it would actually be from a pool of licensed music. I can imagine multiple different artists contributing songs with each stem available for licensing. End users could then use an AI tool like this to not only find a beat that works well with a vocal track, but different stems that go together.
Sure, the generative AI music market is big and may grow exponentially, but at what expense? If - as state in this article - "27 percent of music creators’ revenues will be at risk due to generative AI," what happens to musicians already struggling to make a living? AI proponents like to say, "[_] won't be replaced, but [_] who don't use AI will be replaced by those who do." Maybe some producers using AI tools will thrive, but without credit and compensation, many musicians will simply be replaced.
My opinions are not my employer’s and this material does not create an attorney-client relationship, is not intended to convey legal or ethics advice, and does not guarantee the same or similar results in all cases.