Musician Problems - Rick Beato & Tony from NYC

[@tapeexperiments]

Hey, I made a similar comment on one of Rick‘s videos: and that is that teenagers today are going to live shows buying merch and they’re finding out about local shows with young indie musicians on Instagram and TikTok. (House shows) So I offer this as a bit of hope. They don’t know anything about or care much about music that has been generated by AI. Of course, there are exceptions to this. But I have my finger on this pulse as a father and music teacher. On a personal note: I think AI is a bit overhyped at the moment. It serves the companies that create it to advertise that it’s super and amazing because it’s good for the stockholders. So far, all the music I’ve heard from AI is terrible. In the same way that I would advise my dearest friends not to doom scroll the News everyday; I would advise my fellow musicians to keep making music (have fun!) and don’t worry too much about it.🙂 At the same time these discussions are important so if you are passionate about discussing AI and art- keep going!👊

[@The_Pretend_Elite]

Very good point. Unfortunately there is a member in this community that uses all AI music and they have taken to task retribution for my public display of concern. I thank you for taking the time to send me this message of Hope while AI continues punching holes in the bottom of the ship . I do like AI fixing the picture on my television automatically adjusting settings for Peak visual performance. There is a place for AI but it is not in replicating human affection or expression. Soon we'll have robots in the Home Companion robots. Millions of people already confessed their daily sins to Alexa. That is why we need to stick together. Thanks for hanging 👊

[@WildernessMusic_GentleSerene]

Interesting conversation on AI. But we have had these conversations before, as far back as maybe the 10th century BC? The first people to make music without singing or hitting something were carving flutes or plucking strings, then bowing strings. Then craftsmen began building instruments for people, and with an exchange of goods or money you were now a musician. There wasn't any structure to music, each culture had their own sounds, any musician who would make their own sound would not be popular with these cultures. As few as a few hundred years ago if you didn't make sounds the church approved you were accused of devil music. And all along this history, musicians had other jobs, they didn't live on money from music. The music arts have always taken the hit to the face of the musician. We are never paid the value of the time invested in practice and skill of learning. Just 130 years ago, if you wanted to hear some music, a musician had to come to town, or you had to learn to play something like harmonica or mouth harp as the most affordable. Think what it was like without recorded music, they had player pianos, and that was it. To hear music was an extremely rare joy, you weren't slammed with music at every moment of your life like today. I would guess the entire town showed up for a touring musician performing on a classical guitar or hopefully a decently maintained piano in town. A rare event indeed. Then came the recorded music, wax cylinders, the Victrola's records and its tiny tin sound along with radio and its cheap sound system and limited frequencies. And the people loved it. But going to a concert would yield the sights, but also a sound so full compared to radio or records that it was again a rare treat to hear. Did some stop going to these concerts and choose recorded material instead...yes. Then the 1970's and Hi-Fi and now you could hear recording almost as good as live music. I was a young 15 yo kid buying into audiophile-hood at that time, I was a musician (organist) but loved hearing this incredible sound of other musicians via my high dollar stereo. Then came digital, CDs, computers, MIDI, DAT, Minidiscs, and analog was put on the back burner. Non musicians were placing notes on a computer screen writing songs that was played via MIDI to sampled instruments, it was awful, and sounded like computer inhumane noise. The real musicians were using digital to play their MIDI instruments into computers and sequencers without quantize to achieve multi-track recording. Later musicians recorded tracks on a computer or a multi-track hardware hard disc recorder. In between some used 4 trk cassettes mastering to reel machines. FM radio was playing acceptable audio quality for most and music was everywhere now. For the first time in history, we had music everywhere. But the love of concert was still valued, and stadiums were filled with corporate funded sell-out copy cats and the original too. Now today anyone with a small amount of money can record their own albums, upload to streaming and mass produce CDs or vinyl. The results depend on their skills as a musician, audio engineer, effects designer, sound designer and mastering. This has finally eliminated the corporate music dictating what we hear, and now a search on KZbin or a listen to streaming will be a discovery process. But again, the musician doesn't make any money. I've been a musician for 56 years, don't know a single musician working full time as a musician. Nothing has changed in over 20 centuries! The sheer number of musician choices today make it impossible to hear them all, while in the 1970s you could have had a record of every musician known in that day. So now AI can make music for non-musicians again, just like this sequencer perfected dance music, or building blocks of music in a DAW stacked with sample clips, MIDI phrases and perfected to a millisecond, and MIDI quantized 100% to the grid. Perfected music that can't be reproduced in concert, you hear them in concert and the vocal pitch is horrible, their timing isn't great, and the flaws in instrument skills ringing in our ears. Now everyone compares live music to recorded perfected computer music, and they are disappointed. I, as a musician in concert today am not allowed to make a mistake, because there aren't mistakes on recorded music. People only hear perfection of recorded music 99.9999% all day. So, AI comes along with music that can be imperfected if desired, or perfected, doesn't matter still the same thing as always with recorded music. It is the concert, the live play that you will never hear AI music. Who is going to pay to sit in an auditorium and watch a computer play music? Mental patients? So, musicians today still have the same task as they always had as far back as 10,000 BC. You begin locally, if talented and skilled and people love you, you will grow out of your hometown and be recognized. Recognized by live music play. Live is where it is at and will always be. Coffee house, small venue, taverns, schools, clubs, weddings, events... self-promotion on a small-town scale and talent/skill.

[@The_Pretend_Elite]

Man that's heavy stuff right there I appreciate the history lesson. There was a time when musicians were treat it like royalty indeed

[@EndlessMeece]

First video I've ever seen from your channel... I feel like we'd get along well. I am subscribed.

[@AquaUrban]

I just discovered today that Tony from NYC is in fact a talented guitar player and a student of music. I hope I didn't ruffle any feathers

[@DIYDSP]

I like your expression "cheese at the end of the maze" and also your ideas about what AI will do wrt the secrets of humanity... will it pity us? I believe there is possibility for people to pull out some real deep secrets from it. Nothing classified, but like you say, stuff about putting w and w together. But it will take clever people.

[@The_Pretend_Elite]

The proverbial Pandora's Box will be opened. Would you accept AI in your home do you use an Alexa?

[@DIYDSP]

@@The_Pretend_Elite no way Alexa/siri. I turned off all the basic tracking on my google accounts and sensors on my cell phone ( though apparently some apps are still picking uo keywords) I use copilot for my job coding. It's mainly a fast autocomplete. I use chatgpt bc it's faster than search engines. And sometimes i brainstorm ideas with chatgpt like ask it historical questions bc i'm terrible at history. Sometimes i get it to do some math/physics modeling. though it'a like pulling teeth i'm still grateful for it. I used it to make lyrocs for a huge concept album but it's still a fantasy. I tried to sing them and they came out terrible. I would need a better autotune to even be believable. There's just no faking that i'm a country singer. :) I currently believe AI and other studio-dense equipment will oncrease the value of live performances for small outfits. E.g. 1-5 people playing/singing live without a buttload of "correction equipment." It probably won't make them a viable vocation though. But i believe people will recognize the value of an intimate, nearly acoustic peformance. They will never give up their love of huge concerts tho. The key is to wedge ourselves into rituals like birthdays, weddings, and new rituals like lol gender reveals and maybe job changes, moving parties. Key is we have to keep brainstorming and finding new niches. Social media 10 second loops are fished out. We can grieve for a minute but must go where they can't go. The message is not just the music but the bigger meaning and story and context around the music. E.g. the new baby party, the 5 years sober party, etc. Music is an inportant slice of those events.

[@artie218]

As far as KZbin goes , I don’t know for sure but there are people who make a living off their channel and it’s for a lot less than a million views, I think there’s also $ involved for subscribing and/or liking a video , maybe someone here who does so can comment

[@The_Pretend_Elite]

Glad to see I'm not the only one confused as to how much money can really be made on KZbin. I appreciate you subscribing

[@JohnPrepuce]

It's like John Henry. Man fighting against machine, only to die in the end. Pretty bleak. I just try to compose stuff that AI can't compose (or wouldn't want to.)

[@unc1589]

I don’t think Tony NYC disputed that aspect of Rick’s video. Are you saying that Tony approves of AI ripoff technology? How’d you get there?

[@The_Pretend_Elite]

No I did not say Tony approves of AI Technologies applied to music I don't really know how he feels about that so we could ask him directly and see what he thinks

[@niceguy391987]

It all boils down to the worth of things. If there's an abundance of something, it means it's extraordinary easy to obtain. The harder something is to obtain, the more interesting it becomes and the more it's being appreciated and valued. Music has literally been watered down, it's so abundantly available as water in the ocean. Right now we're drowning in music and that's why most people can't enjoy it anymore. The thirst for it has gone away, we're not in the dry desert anymore, we're in the middle of a lake and we're about to go under.

[@GO-lh3rt]

who the hell is Tony from NYC anyway?

[@The_Pretend_Elite]

Tony from NYC is a hip hop Channel. He's an audio engineer with inside information on how hip hop tracks are made

[@unc1589]

@@The_Pretend_Elite That’s not entirely accurate.

[@BleaktaBright]

​@@unc1589it's 100% accurate look at his channel

[@The_Pretend_Elite]

​@@unc1589judging by his channel content and commenters he is exactly what I said. If I am incorrect please provide accurate information so that I may correct myself. Thank you