5 ms·

Am I stupid, or is this just AI covering Blackbird by The Beatles in a couple different styles? Is this supposed to be an example of AI writing "absolute banger

by tyg13 3y ago

Am I stupid, or is this just AI covering Blackbird by The Beatles in a couple different styles? Is this supposed to be an example of AI writing "absolute bangers" or "soulful music with feeling" because I just don't see it. It seems like the exact "paint-by-numbers" stuff that we always see with AI: it's capable of taking existing art and mashing it together, but there's nothing interesting or novel being created here. It's the pinnacle of carbon-copy, technically impressive but still soulless art. If you played me either of these songs without telling me they were AI, I would think: OK, weird cover of Blackbird? Not particularly moving, but perhaps a stepping off point to something more. What would interest me more than the music itself is the story behind why the song was covered, who was performing it, what were their intended emotions in creating it? And of course, since it's a cover, if they had any original material of their own. Knowing that it's just an audio file being synthesized by an AI takes all of the enjoyment out of it for me (not that it was particularly good to begin with). Music is not simply good because of the sound entering your ears. The story, the artist behind it, the intended emotion and artistry is part of the experience. AI does not deliver on this, and I doubt it ever will, because human connection is what underlies those extra-musical qualities. I care about the people who made the music; I will never care about the machine.

bongodongobob 3y ago
Those are two examples I thought I'd give rather than linkbombing. Yes, I chose the lyrics to Blackbird because they are short, it generates in 2:00 chunks, and they don't have obvious meter. It's not like a limerick or something. I wanted to test the musical capabilities, I wasn't interested in generating lyrics, though that can obviously be done. As someone who has studied and played music professionally my whole life, this isn't paint by number, at least in the way you think it is. Most music is very similar. You can write 90% of most popular music using the 6 diatonic trichords, and 80% probably with only 4. There are also only so many ways to rearrange those. This is not using a book of chord changes or melodies. I can promise you that after listening to 100s of versions of Blackbird, Yesterday, and the ABCs, I do not see the sort of pull the changes from a database that you're implying. In fact, I'd wager I could probably find a dozen songs that use the exact same chord changes and you wouldn't even have realized prior. I know because it's a great wedding gig trick, and we'd do it all the time. I don't know what changes you think were carbon copied in the first link. It shows really good songwriting skills. Use of tension and surprise. "It sounds like everything else in that genre." Yes, that's what a genre is. It also shows skill at vocal phrasing. This is really difficult and makes or breaks any song you try to write. Explaining how difficult it is to write good melodies while putting a hard syllabic constraint on it is beyond the scope here. It's not easy or obvious and usually sounds like shit. Like, try to sing Sweet Home Alabama along with the chord changes at the end of "Layla". After doing essentially that for years (that's exactly what songwriting is) I doubt I could do it and not have it sound idiotic. This thing can do that. Here's an example of it mimicking Russian to English phrasing: https://app.suno.ai/song/0d2d817f-4bf3-4837-85ab-9ff13abe9b49 https://app.suno.ai/song/0d2d817f-4bf3-4837-85ab-9ff13abe9b4... David Bowi-ish phrasing: https://app.suno.ai/song/a6b9e419-2e0f-4208-b66e-929b2076d960 https://app.suno.ai/song/a6b9e419-2e0f-4208-b66e-929b2076d96... West Coast Hip-Hop banger alert if you're over 35 https://app.suno.ai/song/82e05d5b-7e0f-4715-8ed4-5f3d22fb81d9 https://app.suno.ai/song/82e05d5b-7e0f-4715-8ed4-5f3d22fb81d... Acid Funk https://app.suno.ai/song/de174b94-1758-4fae-b497-93b79f384a2b https://app.suno.ai/song/de174b94-1758-4fae-b497-93b79f384a2... Like I said, I have about 100 of these. This shit is nuts. Here's some ABC's Bossa Nova https://app.suno.ai/song/0fe61c85-62be-4327-9f05-5b0865353a61 https://app.suno.ai/song/0fe61c85-62be-4327-9f05-5b0865353a6... 90's Grunge https://app.suno.ai/song/321a48e1-611b-4ec6-af0e-6e88815621c3 https://app.suno.ai/song/321a48e1-611b-4ec6-af0e-6e88815621c... Baroque https://app.suno.ai/song/68257dae-031f-4910-a013-9bc0281cee2a https://app.suno.ai/song/68257dae-031f-4910-a013-9bc0281cee2... If you're thinking "Oh that just sounds like the Brandenburg Concertos" YEAH. THAT'S MY POINT. This level of mimicry is brand new. I've never seen anything close to doing anything like this. If you have, I'm all ears. Now since you think originality is important, here is a poem I wrote for a girl I dated that worked at a coffee shop. Never intended it to be a song, but I love it. https://app.suno.ai/song/9346c871-5e7f-439a-9134-d876aca70862 https://app.suno.ai/song/9346c871-5e7f-439a-9134-d876aca7086... https://app.suno.ai/song/2be696db-3b3b-48df-9075-66d3388cc119 https://app.suno.ai/song/2be696db-3b3b-48df-9075-66d3388cc11... When I showed all this stuff to my musician friends this weekend (some who contract with Disney, Netflix, write scores, actively touring, etc), the reactions were actual tears, complete disbelief, shock, and existential dread. $1000 says there's no way you could tell me whether this is a Chopin original or not played amongst others, and that's my point. And if you say "While sure, but that's not really that impressive because computers", frankly, you don't know what you're talking about and have already made your mind up. https://app.suno.ai/song/bab48740-b977-4ee3-bdb8-0bc859950472 https://app.suno.ai/song/bab48740-b977-4ee3-bdb8-0bc85995047...
- csa 3y ago
  Thank you for all of this.
- sandspar 3y ago
  Thanks for the write up. Where do you see this going? For example, what will Spotify's front page look like in two years?
  - bongodongobob 3y ago
    I think Spotify will start to fade away to personalized music, or adapt to it and become a search engine of generated music. My mom likes the Kansas, Chicago, early Genesis, ELO, and Rush. She's babysitting her granddaughter. I made this for her tonight in the last two hours, splicing and nudging the prompt. 70s Progressive ABCs: https://app.suno.ai/song/d8211841-2c75-4c8d-ba01-4cff9d35dcbc https://app.suno.ai/song/d8211841-2c75-4c8d-ba01-4cff9d35dcb...
    - SunghoYahng 3y ago
      That makes no sense. People don't care that much about how good music or songs are. If not, why do you think the songs on the best playlists keep changing? What matters is being able to maintain the same knowledge and talk about that music or song with someone. So AI-generated music can have no value. In music, narrative isn't something supplementary. People want narratives and music is the medium for that. (But outside of Spotify, maybe this won't be the case. People aren't interested in the narrative of such music as background music or OSTs.)
      - skeaker 3y ago
        People want music for different reasons. Some just like it because it sounds cool.
      - fragmede 3y ago
        because all narratives ever written about/in music are 100% true and no one ever made up a story for entertainment purposes. AI-generated music will just have AI-generated backstories to provide a narrative and story behind the lyrics for people that want that.

by tyg13 3y ago

bongodongobob 3y ago

Those are two examples I thought I'd give rather than linkbombing. Yes, I chose the lyrics to Blackbird because they are short, it generates in 2:00 chunks, and they don't have obvious meter. It's not like a limerick or something. I wanted to test the musical capabilities, I wasn't interested in generating lyrics, though that can obviously be done. As someone who has studied and played music professionally my whole life, this isn't paint by number, at least in the way you think it is. Most music is very similar. You can write 90% of most popular music using the 6 diatonic trichords, and 80% probably with only 4. There are also only so many ways to rearrange those. This is not using a book of chord changes or melodies. I can promise you that after listening to 100s of versions of Blackbird, Yesterday, and the ABCs, I do not see the sort of pull the changes from a database that you're implying. In fact, I'd wager I could probably find a dozen songs that use the exact same chord changes and you wouldn't even have realized prior. I know because it's a great wedding gig trick, and we'd do it all the time. I don't know what changes you think were carbon copied in the first link. It shows really good songwriting skills. Use of tension and surprise. "It sounds like everything else in that genre." Yes, that's what a genre is. It also shows skill at vocal phrasing. This is really difficult and makes or breaks any song you try to write. Explaining how difficult it is to write good melodies while putting a hard syllabic constraint on it is beyond the scope here. It's not easy or obvious and usually sounds like shit. Like, try to sing Sweet Home Alabama along with the chord changes at the end of "Layla". After doing essentially that for years (that's exactly what songwriting is) I doubt I could do it and not have it sound idiotic. This thing can do that. Here's an example of it mimicking Russian to English phrasing: https://app.suno.ai/song/0d2d817f-4bf3-4837-85ab-9ff13abe9b49 https://app.suno.ai/song/0d2d817f-4bf3-4837-85ab-9ff13abe9b4... David Bowi-ish phrasing: https://app.suno.ai/song/a6b9e419-2e0f-4208-b66e-929b2076d960 https://app.suno.ai/song/a6b9e419-2e0f-4208-b66e-929b2076d96... West Coast Hip-Hop banger alert if you're over 35 https://app.suno.ai/song/82e05d5b-7e0f-4715-8ed4-5f3d22fb81d9 https://app.suno.ai/song/82e05d5b-7e0f-4715-8ed4-5f3d22fb81d... Acid Funk https://app.suno.ai/song/de174b94-1758-4fae-b497-93b79f384a2b https://app.suno.ai/song/de174b94-1758-4fae-b497-93b79f384a2... Like I said, I have about 100 of these. This shit is nuts. Here's some ABC's Bossa Nova https://app.suno.ai/song/0fe61c85-62be-4327-9f05-5b0865353a61 https://app.suno.ai/song/0fe61c85-62be-4327-9f05-5b0865353a6... 90's Grunge https://app.suno.ai/song/321a48e1-611b-4ec6-af0e-6e88815621c3 https://app.suno.ai/song/321a48e1-611b-4ec6-af0e-6e88815621c... Baroque https://app.suno.ai/song/68257dae-031f-4910-a013-9bc0281cee2a https://app.suno.ai/song/68257dae-031f-4910-a013-9bc0281cee2... If you're thinking "Oh that just sounds like the Brandenburg Concertos" YEAH. THAT'S MY POINT. This level of mimicry is brand new. I've never seen anything close to doing anything like this. If you have, I'm all ears. Now since you think originality is important, here is a poem I wrote for a girl I dated that worked at a coffee shop. Never intended it to be a song, but I love it. https://app.suno.ai/song/9346c871-5e7f-439a-9134-d876aca70862 https://app.suno.ai/song/9346c871-5e7f-439a-9134-d876aca7086... https://app.suno.ai/song/2be696db-3b3b-48df-9075-66d3388cc119 https://app.suno.ai/song/2be696db-3b3b-48df-9075-66d3388cc11... When I showed all this stuff to my musician friends this weekend (some who contract with Disney, Netflix, write scores, actively touring, etc), the reactions were actual tears, complete disbelief, shock, and existential dread. $1000 says there's no way you could tell me whether this is a Chopin original or not played amongst others, and that's my point. And if you say "While sure, but that's not really that impressive because computers", frankly, you don't know what you're talking about and have already made your mind up. https://app.suno.ai/song/bab48740-b977-4ee3-bdb8-0bc859950472 https://app.suno.ai/song/bab48740-b977-4ee3-bdb8-0bc85995047...

csa 3y ago
Thank you for all of this.
sandspar 3y ago
Thanks for the write up. Where do you see this going? For example, what will Spotify's front page look like in two years?
- bongodongobob 3y ago
  I think Spotify will start to fade away to personalized music, or adapt to it and become a search engine of generated music. My mom likes the Kansas, Chicago, early Genesis, ELO, and Rush. She's babysitting her granddaughter. I made this for her tonight in the last two hours, splicing and nudging the prompt. 70s Progressive ABCs: https://app.suno.ai/song/d8211841-2c75-4c8d-ba01-4cff9d35dcbc https://app.suno.ai/song/d8211841-2c75-4c8d-ba01-4cff9d35dcb...
  - SunghoYahng 3y ago
    That makes no sense. People don't care that much about how good music or songs are. If not, why do you think the songs on the best playlists keep changing? What matters is being able to maintain the same knowledge and talk about that music or song with someone. So AI-generated music can have no value. In music, narrative isn't something supplementary. People want narratives and music is the medium for that. (But outside of Spotify, maybe this won't be the case. People aren't interested in the narrative of such music as background music or OSTs.)
    - skeaker 3y ago
      People want music for different reasons. Some just like it because it sounds cool.
    - fragmede 3y ago
      because all narratives ever written about/in music are 100% true and no one ever made up a story for entertainment purposes. AI-generated music will just have AI-generated backstories to provide a narrative and story behind the lyrics for people that want that.