Is it really over for composers and the film music industry as we know it?
If you're here, you know I'm a composer for media. It's been a long standing passion of mine, and after a long struggle and life happenstance, I'm finally finding myself poised to be working steadily in the film, t.v., and game industries. And then something happened the other day...
The sudden emergence of the latest AI music creation technology (Udio) just made a huge (meteoric) impact in the world of music, and media creation. It works on the same principle of "prompts" that other AI technology uses, even other AI music creation sites, where you enter in specific text or keywords describing what you want it to generate. When you press "generate" it takes a few seconds (depending on how busy the servers are), and it gives you a 30 second sample of music. If you like the resulting "creation" you can choose to have the AI expand on it, pretty much indefinitely as far as I know. If you don't like what was generated then simply edit the prompts and see what changes, or start over from scratch.
I heard a sample today that someone posted from another group of composers, and the sound quality and expressiveness of this full orchestra on the recording was so "real" I really didn't believe it. Not really. So I ended up trying it out for myself. I'll come back to that in a little bit, but let's talk about implications for a moment.
The A.I. music problem you're feeling right now:
This new iteration of the technology not only impacts electronic and pop music that we've been seeing for a minute now. As it turns out, this new model of A.I. generates even classical and cinematic film scores with an unparalleled realism even the most skilled DAW programers with the best sample libraries available are unable to achieve. The implications to musicians, songwriters and composers are indeed terrifying. Not to mention all of the skilled and dedicated professionals, recording studios, and scoring stages who have helped bring music to the world who's very livelihoods depend on the people who create and move us through music. It has created a great deal of doubt and cast a shadow on the industry which supports hundreds of thousands of working musicians world wide, tens of thousands more who operate the recording studios, and all of those aspiring to join them counting in the millions, with many afraid for their futures.
This is all very intense for creators. AI can be a valuable creative tool for many, and for others an omen signaling the death of their careers and very dreams. But is that the whole picture? Do we as musicians, producers and composers have to be afraid of AI taking our jobs? Maybe, but could we not use our immeasurable capacity for creative problem solving, expanding our understanding of this new technology and harness it to improve our own workflows? And I'm speaking directly to composers now, can we not use AI as a tool to provide an even more seamless, and much more interactive and collaborative experience of telling stories as we partner with directors, game developers, and studios?
Remember how I said I had tried it out?
Well, I did and it's really...REALLY...impressive. (insert extremely heightened anxiety)
If you're still with me then you're curious too, so here's my AI generated creation the generator automatically named "Whispers of the Unseen". I used the following prompts:
"instrumental, cinematic, symphonic orchestra, film, score, terrifying, supense, thriller, lush strings, melodic, atmospheric"
Not very heavy on the details but it was a starting point. I ran it through a few cycles or "remixes" to find a good starting vibe, and then began to expand it, gave it and intro and outro, and before I knew it I had a cinematic sounding orchestral piece of music sitting there at nearly 4 minutes long. Here's the kicker...It really does sound like the real thing. Like, really real. You might think"Well, just HOW really real?"...
...to quote Shrek, "Really, really."
...shit.
Now what?
This is all very intense for creators. A.I. can be a valuable and creative tool for many, especially on the other side of the table, and for others AI is an omen signaling the death of their careers and very dreams. But is that the whole picture? Do we as musicians, producers and composers have to be afraid of AI taking out jobs? Maybe. Though, could we not use our immeasurable, and very HUMAN capacity for creative problem solving? Should we expand our understanding of this new technology and harness it to improve our own workflows? And I'm speaking directly to composers now, can we not use AI as a tool to provide an even easier, and much more consultative, interactive and collaborative experience of telling stories as we partner with directors, game developers, and studios?
I know we can. That's EXACTLY what I will be doing. I will choose to embrace AI as a tool to enhance the creative & consultative process of collaborating with storytellers. Not replace it. Here's what that means:
AI has absolutely proven that it is capable of reproducing some incredibly realistic results with any kind of musical style you can prompt it with, and then continue to refine and expand on the initial results to create something really impressive AND EXPRESSIVE! But but hold on just a second there. AI's not ready to replace anything just yet. It doesn't really score anything. One still can't simply type in a prompt and walk away with a perfect score for a scene that a director or producer can just plug into their project. There's a lot of nuance to how music helps filmmakers tell their stories. The use of timing and careful consideration for character theme as leitmotif that can quickly change from scene to scene or even shot to shot is no less relevant now with the new A.I. technology.
What still needs to happen is human creativity and interaction through collaboration.
Wait...huh?
You might think next, "Well that sure sounds nice, Brian, but what the heck does that even mean?"
What it means is that you can prompt A.I. all day long, but you still need a way to translate that to something meaningful in context. Let's use this as an example; Let's say you, a filmmaker need an epic score for your new thriller. So you go to an A.I. service, you sign up and start paying the monthly fee (Yep, it ain't free folks. Even Udio is only free during BETA) and you start prompting things like "instrumental", "film score", "thriller", "scary", "terrifying", "cinematic", and so on. The AI comes back with 30 seconds of something interesting, but isn't quite right, so you change and add prompts until you start to get something you like. Then you tell the A.I. to start expanding it and on you go until you have a 3-4 minute track of what sounds like a legitimate epic film score with a full symphonic orchestra and choir, even!
YAY YOU!!!
But you're not done, are you? As you listen back to the A.I. creation (and you're super excited about it because it really does sound awesome) you start to realise that the A.I. has, after a minute or so, diverted away from the initial terrifying thriller score, into something more fitting for an instalment of Lord of the Rings, and that won't do at all! (Insert "YOU SHALL NOT PASS!" thank you Sir Ian.) So you go round and round with the A.I. again, and again. Maybe you get closer to what you're looking for, maybe you get farther away even still. I imagine a great deal of frustration developing around this process, and you still need to work on the rest of your production, and talk to so many other department heads so you put the A.I. away and maybe try again later. Even then it's still not tailor made for YOUR film, series or video game, let alone specific scenes.
What you may now have is still not more than a really great sounding collection of motifs that more or less express the emotion(s) you may want to convey. There's still the lengthy process of combing through, and editing, and going back and forth with the A.I., and editing some more because the A.I. didn't really understand what you wanted, and none of the motifs cut and paste together well. There are no solid transitions now, and you can't just grab a melodic bit and have a new instrument play it for this other scene, and trying to shoehorn in all these motifs and little chunks of music into something that actually fits your visuals. Still it doesn't guarantee it effectively moves the story forward in the way you originally intended. So now your stuck with a real-ish sounding, but Frankenstein'd together (that maybe not even Mary Shelley would love), sort 'a okay, or even not-great-at-all score, and you have too much else to do to get your vision to viewers and gamers. YOU NEED HELP! You need someone with experience and is a creative partner to translate your original intent, along with the sound and vibe that the A.I. created into a thoughtfully crafted and themed score that will still need to be orchestrated, copied, performed, and recorded by professionals in studios and scoring stages the world over!
What you've done is used A.I. to create a great "temp track" to give to a human composer. A collaborator and partner who is just as passionate and invested in YOUR story as you are. That's who I am. I'm your partner and go between with AI. The algorithm, as impressive as it is (I mean no disrespect to our future A.I. overlords), has no investment in your story. It doesn't care how your audience feels about your music. It's still just emulating what it hears from it's learning material. It's not thinking about story or character. It's just kind of showing off. Like little Stewart from an old MAD TV sketch, A.I. is just getting our attention and saying, "LookwhatIcando!".
So go on and hop on that new A.I. bandwagon and try it out. See for yourself what all the hubbub is all about. You might even find it useful to get some ideas going. But then shoot me a message. We'll set up a time to chat about the story your telling. We'll listen to your A.I. track. We can talk about what makes your characters so compelling and what makes each one of them tick. We'll sit and nerd out about our favorite films and scores, and dive in together to find the magical thing that makes them so loved.
I'll use your A.I. generated creation as a guide, a common language, as I score your film or game. I'll develop character themes, create uniquely designed score elements that encapsulates the world/this universe that you've created, and that no other production will have because it came from human creativity and imagination. Together. As collaborators who have a shared love for what they do.
So share your story with me, and let's build worlds!
With or without A.I.
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Leave a comment, and share your experience if you've used any of the AI music generators before!