AI and the future state of music creation

[michaelhanson]

I’ve been looking for ways to us AI to assist me in original song creation.  How to use it as a tool. 
 

I’ve always struggled with lyrics.  So lately, I’ve been writing lyrics and then running them through Chat and asking it to improve my lyrics or make suggestion.  Most of what I get doesn’t fit where I want to go, but it sometimes spits out a line or an idea that I take and build upon.  I’m using it like a cowriter to bounce idea off and get a reaction.  This has greatly spread up lyrics for me. 

[Jimbo 88]

3 hours ago, michaelhanson said:

I’ve been looking for ways to us AI to assist me in original song creation.  How to use it as a tool. 
 

I’ve always struggled with lyrics.  So lately, I’ve been writing lyrics and then running them through Chat and asking it to improve my lyrics or make suggestion.  Most of what I get doesn’t fit where I want to go, but it sometimes spits out a line or an idea that I take and build upon.  I’m using it like a cowriter to bounce idea off and get a reaction.  This has greatly spread up lyrics for me. 

Very good .

Me too.   I will also have a song I want to create, even have it finished, then try to get AI to create a song similar to mine.  What I find is that AI gives me ideas on how to improve song forms and even arrangements.   The songs generated from AI sound so formulaic to me, but once in a while there will be an idea to pull from.

The future will have those who use AI and those who don't.    

[Amberwolf]

6 hours ago, Jimbo 88 said:

The future will have those who use AI and those who don't.    

It might end up more like "The future will have those who are used by AI and....that's it."

    

[craigb]

I asked AI to make Yoko Ono sound good but it replied that it doesn't perform miracles. 😁

[lmu2002]

I've been playing with Suno for a while. Making it create 80's music. And the results have been very good. And when I remember that 80's music was 90% average **** it makes perfect sense: Suno does exactly that, average music. And it's fine. It has done it's homework better than I or anyone ever could. But it doesn't produce unique, shiny diamonds. I even got a couple of songs that I like listening to, so I downloaded them and will make a cool playlist for my personal use as I go along.

I'm also trying to learn what it does and why. It's an opportunity to learn about music's secrets and songwriting  in a very new way. Not sure if the charm will last too long but that's fine too.

[michaelhanson]

On 10/30/2025 at 2:55 AM, craigb said:

I asked AI to make Yoko Ono sound good but it replied that it doesn't perform miracles. 😁

I’m even more impressed with AI now. 

[Tony Carpenter]

I too jumped on Suno, I uploaded a few of my songs that I recorded, everything from a straight acoustic guitar and vocal to a finished recording. The results are astounding and very natural sounding at least in the genres I have chosen so far. It's ability to listen to my melodies and rhythms and translate them to something almost entirely new is well.. amazing.  It's putting my over half a century of song writing in serious question LOL> 

Edited Friday at 04:25 AM by Tony Carpenter

[PhonoBrainer]

I will never use AI in the creation of music or lyrics. Opinions vary, but in my view, computer assisted = computer enabled. 

The creation of music and words in a cohesive song is not only something that marks us as human, but also more importantly, something that makes us unique and distinct from our fellow humans. Isn't that kind of sacred?

Plus it's an awkward songwriting credit:

"Lennon/McCartney/Hewlett-Packard "

 

 

Edited Friday at 02:14 PM by PhonoBrainer

[Notes_Norton]

I'm not a songwriter. All the lyrics I write sound trite and hackneyed. Probably because the words are the last thing I pay attention to. Until I've digested the song they are just articulations of the melody. But since I play sax, flute, guitar, bass, drums, wind synth, and keyboard synth, I want to know what every musician is doing. How they contrast or complement each other. How about the groove? Phrasing? Balance? Musical ornaments?  And so much more.

But I went to Suno out of curiosity and was very impressed with the sample songs. Especially in the pop and modern country genre, where I'm used to hearing auto-tune voices, If I heard most of them without trying to decide if they were AI or not, the thought wouldn't have crossed my mind.

I make my own backing tracks for my duo, and I write after market styles for the Band-in-a-Box app. But for me, the creative process is what I like. It's like a puzzle. What do I want to accomplish, how do I do it, what do I need to change, and so forth? And when I'm done, I get that good sense of accomplishment.   

Having AI do all the work for me would be more like listening and appreciating songs made by others. I wouldn't get the "Listen to what I did" feeling.

But that's just me. I don't write songs to make a living, and I don't need AI for gigging. DJs, Karaoke, Open Mic Night, Sports Bars and others already cut into my end of the business, but I found my niche, and adapted. 

If I get requests for an AI song, and if can cover it, I'd learn it.

 

Insights and incites by Notes ♫

 

[Amberwolf]

While it isn't really the same as what's being talked about here, but it is in the same vein in that it's about making a tool for an artist to create the thing they ahve a specific vision for, I am trying to create this tool for visual art here

https://endless-sphere.com/sphere/threads/adrs-artist-directed-reality-synthesis-a-tool-to-help-artists-create.129368/

If there are any interested coders / scripters / artists, I would appreciate any input there that you can provide. 

Edited Monday at 08:46 PM by Amberwolf

[Gswitz]

Amber wolf,  have you considered using your post as an ai prompt and see what you get? 

[Amberwolf]

That's in the linked thread.

[Terry Kelley]

AI is handing you what other artists have done without them getting credit.  AI itself isn’t doing squat.

[mettelus]

There are more and more "AI pose generators" coming online that are descent and will manipulate/merge subjects/settings from input image(s). It seems that is part of your request in that you want to re-use a precise subject elsewhere.

With 2D this can be more limiting/challenging (massive pose changes require 3D detail of the subject), so I suspect this will spill over into 3D AI tools going forward, but the processing power for such can be pretty hefty.

[Notes_Norton]

6 hours ago, Terry Kelley said:

AI is handing you what other artists have done without them getting credit.  AI itself isn’t doing squat.

That's all I'm doing, recycling Stan Getz, Buddy Holly, Sil Austin, Paul McCartney, Ace Cannon, Ludwig Beethoven, Bernard Purdie, Jim Horn, Duane Eddy, Henry Mancini, Dmitri Shostakovich, Junior Walker, James Jamerson, Stanley Turrentine, David Sanborn, Jimmy Forrest, Robert Johnson, Sam 'The Man' Taylor, Buddy Guy, Plas Johnson, Maceo Parker, Bobby Keys, Johnny Rivers, David 'Fathead' Newman, Marvin Gaye, Earl Bostic, Bob Marley, Paul Desmond, Tito Puente, Ray Charles, Elvis Presley, King Curtis, and so many thousands of others of all instruments and genres.

I've learned thousands and thousands of songs so far in my career, plus I've listened and analyzed hundreds of thousands of others, and I take a piece of all of them with me.

IMO, AI can't write a symphony - yet - but some of the things on Suno are better than some of the songs that were popular and I've learned to please my audience.  "Get Up And Boogie", "Surfin Bird", "Wooly Bully", "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin), "I'm Your Boogie Man", and so many more. But nothing I hear is as good as "Bohemian Rhapsody", "Roundabout", "Crimson King", "Nights In White Satin", "Aqualung", or the Abbey Road Medley.

The public doesn't care. Both musical garbage and musical art have made millions. If I knew the secret, I'd market it and make zillions.

The Luddites never got their jobs back, so IMO it's useless to fight AI. The "Disco Sucks" movement didn't get rid of DJs taking over the singles bars business. Musicians didn't stop Rap from being popular, either.

I am a performer, and I love what I do. When I started, every singles bar, show bar, and hotel from a Holiday Inn on up had a 4 piece or more band playing 6 nights a week, and some had the beginner bands showing up on Monday. Then came "live" DJs, Karaoke, Open Mic Night, Sports Bars, and quite a few others, taking the place of what used to be the exclusive domain of live musicians.

I've learned to adapt, going duo, making my own backing tracks (from scratch), and targeting the one-nighter party business for the 45+ year-olds while filling in with one-nighters at adult bars/restaurants, and so on. A lot of lugging, toting, and schlepping, but I'm still making a living doing nothing but music.

For those writing songs for a living, AI represents a challenge. It's up to you to figure out a niche you can squeeze into and survive while the world changes around you.

AI AIN'T going away.

Insights and incites by Notes ♫