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. This blog will serve as a personal journal about my participation in these projects and my music-making process. 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.
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My Music
I was inspired by the 3-track album posted by Brian Crabtree aka tehn on the llllllll.co forum titled Farthest Skies that is a minimal arrangement of arpeggiated synth sounds. When I saw the prompt for Naviar Haiku, I thought about trying to create a track with the sound of thunder panned left, a minimal blend of arpeggios, ending with the sound of thunder panned right. I thought it wouldn't take me too long, but I got so caught so caught up in it! I learned my lesson.
I also submitted a track for Week 2 of Weekly Beats that you can hear on my Weekly Beats profile and on SoundCloud. I used Musiio to to figure out what tags to use for posting on social media and it suggested “electronic” and “synthwave,” which was interesting because I wouldn't have picked the latter myself. This track was composed and mixed in Ableton, then bounced to Logic Pro where I used the Mastering Assistant and then bounced it again.
Music + Tech + Law
Unless and until there is a federal Right to Publicity - that is, the right to control the commercial use of a person’s name and likeness, which is still a creature of state law with rights varying from state-to-state - efforts like this at the state level will be important to protect musicians throughout the United States, not just in Nashville and the coasts.
The No AI Fraud Act could be a step in the direction toward nationwide publicity rights. As described in this article, it is no surprise the mainstream music industry is throwing its support behind it, but every musician stands to gain from these rights at the federal level.
“SoundCloud in Turmoil?” Reads this headline. In accordance with Betteridge’s Law of Headlines, no, SoundCloud is probably not in turmoil. A simultaneous report by Billboard is titled: “SoundCloud Has Been Preparing To Sell For Over A Year.” There is still a lot to learn about who the potential buyers are and where they stand.
Discoveries like this make me think about applications to music. It would be interesting to learn if parts on famous songs were actually recorded by the attributed artist. I personally cannot wait to have AI super-powered “liner notes” where a system can tell me more about what musicians and producers worked on songs just from the sounds on the recording.
To other musicians I would ask: How are you going to feel when - not if - your name is leaked on a “style list?” like this. Even if you release your music under a permissive license, what if your name and likeness is associated with a project or company you don’t want to be associated with?
In the picture accompanying this article, the suggested prompt is, “Alexa, give me some old school techno.” Presumably, the result is AI generated music that sounds like early electronic dance music from Detroit. If the “techno” that is generated sounds authentic, then the underlying technology must have been trained by using sound recordings made by those pioneering Detroit artists, and now is in direct competition with them for listeners’ attention. Those artists should be compensated somehow.
SZA is quoted here as saying about leaks of her music: “This is my job. This is my life and my intellectual property.” SZA is standing up for herself and all musicians who have the right under copyright law to distribute their works on their own terms.
The UK, appearing to want to attract more technology companies, was considering enacting a broad carveout to copyright protections in order to allow for data mining and in turn AI training. As reported here, it appears efforts by creative industry groups have successfully countered that proposal. I assume that leaders involved in those discussions realized that it is more promising to remain one of the world’s creative capitols than try to become a one for still-developing technology.
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