JPF Home Page Forums General Messages Brian Austin Whitney Blog A.I. article published June 4th

Music A.I.: Friend or Foe, Amazing Tool or Cheating?

(The following 2000 word article was NOT written with any A.I. if that matters to you).

There is a LOT of negative press and concern over A.I. across every sector, but in the case of music, it isn't all a bed of tears.

Suno, in my view the "Chat GPT/VEO" of music A.I., just released an upgrade that allows you to upload entire finished songs (yes, 100% YOUR work up to 8 minutes) and then allows YOU to direct any upgrade, addition, or improvement you can think up. Nearly every artist, who isn't a studio level producer themselves, goes where they have the processing gear to finish off your compositions. This is either off your guidance or from a producer you've chosen who brings the composition to a marketable level. Most label and wealthy artists do this for every project. But most of us are not wealthy. We also must pick and choose between our creations, often choosing commercially attractive songs over meaningful, interesting or innovative approaches. A.I. is the great equalizing upgrade. You use it to force multiply your creative ideas for pennies a song.

This is NOT about pushing a button and a song coming out. Can that be done? Sure. But it has been done forever with more and more features on instruments down to kids toys that produce music doing most of the lifting. Programs have been out there for decades to assist writers with backing tracks for example. There has never been a shortage of bad songs using any method that great songs have also come from.

If you are a lyricist or composer without the corresponding skills, yes, you can use A.I. to create either half for you which may be your only option, especially if you are just learning. Not many people want to work with novice songwriters, unless they are also novice. And not all musical talent is equal so you can spend your life with serial mismatches when trying to find someone patient, and willing to let you try, fail and try again. For those folks, A.I. solves that problem for you. But most of our Just Plain Folks members are pro's who put out their own CD's (about 85% have released an Album) and the other 15% are often lyricists who can't write music. For the pro's, there is a stigma against A.I., saying it is cheating. Well, if we had the budget and hired a high-end producer, high end session players, high end engineers, and a mastering expert, isn't THAT a crap ton of "cheating?" After all, once you have set your words to a melody, you've finished the songwriting portion and there are countless successful composers who do not take their compositions on the road.

Instead of scraping by to afford one album every few years, you can turn ALL your compositions into finished songs if you want, as if you have unlimited studio budgets and first-class facilities, players, producers and engineers. A.I. will NEVER be less helpful than it is right now. I know of studios who ALREADY use crazy tech to produce music and soon, many of those studios will be using (if they aren't already) A.I. tools to produce projects for money. Why wouldn't they?

But YOU can learn the skills through trial and error with little risk at all. I strongly suggest you do. I traded my own music career for the time and freedom to run Just Plain Folks. I did not ever charge musicians for anything we offered, instead I worked hard to find sponsors to pay the costs. I also learned how to get by with pennies rather than millions. The only downside was I left my own career midway. I couldn't do both well, so I had to choose. I made the right choice, but now, near the end of my 40-year run with Just Plain Folks, I can go back to the thousands of songs I wrote but never fully produced and finished them. In fact, that is what I have been doing since September when I got the opportunity to work with two A.I. companies and test this stuff out. I have been expecting this for decades.

I wrote about my predictions hundreds of times going back to Pre Internet days. I was an early adopter of BBS systems, using my Mac SE computer to run the first version of Finale in 1988! I have been waiting ever since for a tool that could do what these new A.I. companies are doing. It allows me, as an artist, to produce as many songs as my mind can dream up with the professional results as good as any studio I could have ever afforded. The astronomical improvements these companies have made, just since September, are breathtaking. But when I hear it played back, I hear MY words, MY melody, MY counter melodies, MY production/arrangement choices, played by a high end team of external helpers.

But what about...

Humans. Yep, this allows me to do these things without additional humans, that is of course if you IGNORE the thousands of human programmers who have sunk years into making these tools. If I pay for THEIR expertise I am cheating, but if I hire A list Producers, Engineers, Studio Facilities, Session Players and hire world class Mastering engineers to put the final touches on my songs, that isn't the same thing? Really?

If I hired these pros, I am hiring their musical input. With A.I. I am often getting LESS help, not MORE help. It is just a DIFFERENT help. I just don't have to buy all the gear and learn how to engineer using that gear, but I still must determine if I am getting what I want from them, no different than asking for more takes in a studio. But with A.I. I can get 100 new takes on demand without overworking humans in the process. Instead of spending a year and all my money to get an album full of produced songs, I can get 10 or more times that in half the time, because that is exactly what I have done. Over 200 songs in 8 months!

For the humans who are displaced by this, that certainly will be a challenge. But in my case, no humans will lose a penny because I had no budget to hire them in the first place. But there is good news for many of these talented people. First, there will STILL be plenty of demand for polished pros to assist in music creation. If you are a sideman, you can now produce your own music or offer up your talents worldwide to a giant new wave of music makers.

This will EXPAND the overall market. It will be a huge asset for smart, talented players to get their unique talent out to the whole world. This is especially lucrative for all those session players and tour players who can now offer their work to the world. Need a guitar track by the guy who played with “Famous band?” now you can get it directly using a wide array of technology. Want your album produced by someone who played the guitar part in that song you loved? She’s available! The cost of production isn’t just down for the end user; it is a force multiplier for EVERYONE! I would love to have access to the professional ears, voice and fingers of a wide array of music professionals.

In the next 20 years, there will be lots of demand for people rooted in the former music industry. After that transition, so much new technology will be in existence, it is impossible to even guess all the possible new ways to make money from talent. But people with talent will ALWAYS have an advantage in any marketplace. The key is for musicians to embrace and use these new technologies and run circles over their less experienced competitors.

And as these tools improve, soon we will be able to mix in humans the same as if we flew in a vocal track from a singer from the other side of the world today (something my friends have been doing for decades already). It is also something I plan to do because I have a LOT of musician friends from our peak of 125K members in the early 2010s. Most are way too busy to come to my location and record. Now, they can send me a vocal track, a piano track etc. and I can match it up with the rest of the production, and that is all pre-A.I. tech! These features are still improving, but by next year when I am ready to put out a collection of songs that I have made with many of YOU, I expect it to be easy.

That is why I know humans are NOT being replaced. If I had unlimited money, I would LOVE to set up a studio, fly everyone in, and spend the rest of my years making music, not for commercial reasons, but for the spiritual reasons I have always made music. This tech will allow me to do this using other tools like Livestreams and newly perfected connected tech to do it without the cost. There is no downside.

As I mentioned, I have already produced over 200 completely original songs, most dating back to before I worked for JPF 80 hours a week. They are songs with my late vocalist and guitarist, or with another cowriter and guitarist who can no longer function musically due to mental health decline. Their contributions are being reborn with this tech. I have countless rough practice takes of songs nearly forgotten that I have brought back to life, with their intonations included. It has brought me to tears in a few cases. Hearing completed works with my friends. What can be more human than that?

This isn't any kind of paid advocacy. (I wish!) This is simply letting my friends out there know that there IS a place for every ounce of your HUMAN talent and contributions using A.I. tools. Nothing is lost. Instead of the limits of commercial music industry norms, we are now unlimited. And with the cost being less than your monthly Streaming services, wouldn't this be a better investment? Demos used to cost about $650 in Nashville for songwriters in the 80s just to get proof of concept versions. Now I can have a song idea and within an hour have endless proof of concept versions to consider and improve.

And nothing prevents you from doing it how you always did. But why? Get your instrument out, record your vocals, upload that song and by the end of the day you will likely have a finished version if you desire, with hundreds of edits and changes. Isn't that creating?

Now, you can even pull over, hum a melody or faux lyrics into your phone while hitting that great chorus you thought of while driving. (If only I had that during the cross country touring I used to do with JPF!) A.I. will help you produce it with a collection of test versions to listen to on the rest of your drive so you can work out the rest of your lyrics. It even produces dummy lyrics which I thought was something only I mostly did, it is that easy. When you arrive at your destination you can play a nearly or fully finished version for your spouse (which I have done)!

I have thousands of songs, but all this work has caused me to do some of the best new songwriting in my life. I wake up and within minutes I am buried in another new composition. These songs now play through my mind every moment like a radio station as new ideas spring up and become finished songs before bedtime.

I wrote a song half asleep this morning, and by the time we left for an appointment I had 10 versions I liked with slight variations that we listened to in the car on the way to and from the Dr.'s office.

A.I. is a tool. Good people will do good things. Bad people will do bad things. Lazy people will do lazy things. What is NEEDED to counteract the negative is for creative, talented folks like YOU to do amazing things! If you have questions, you know how and where to find me, as always!

Brian Austin Whitney
Founder/CEO
Just Plain Folks Music Org.
June 4th, 2025

Am I just paranoid?

There's a major difference between a multi-track synthesizer workstation, and a computer that can de-compile and re-sample anything you throw at it.
When I consider how this "AI tech" was initially developed (by sampling millions of human produced recordings), I question the logic of helping AI to improve and evolve.

If you use AI, aren't you giving a "super-computer" permission to analyze your intellectual property, then re-process it?

And,

Once you use AI, doesn't the developer of that tech OWN YOU?
Aren't you giving AI permission to re-use YOUR intellectual property?

I'm not just arguing for argument's sake here, Bryan...
Why do musicians/composers work so hard to be unique and original?

Yes, exactly. Paranoid? Well, AI technology in general is a very scary thing. It reminds me of the 2011- 2014 TV show "Person of Interest".

John

Finally, rational posts to respond to!

Yes, you are paranoid.

There is NOT much difference between the revolution in music that has repeated over and over and displaced what came before and this won't be different. Each new generation has plummeted the cost and expanded the options for creating however YOU want to create. In the past you simply put your life savings into paying some gatekeeper tech person to record, mix and master your music using the best tools they had available to make you sound competitive in the marketplace. This is the same. Every time it happens, people panic and say the end is near! But it hasn't gotten worse really. From an "art" point of view, the number of people making music has expanded 1000s of % points and growing. Whether it is a 6 year old with more music tech on her little home keyboard than existed 40 years ago, it's awesome! Computer workstations are a direct descendent of all that came before. Now the "manual" part of moving your fully written song to a marketable quality level has been replaced by technology. But anyone can STILL use any amount of any of it they want. There will be a market for all varieties and no one NEEDS to pay off gatekeepers with money, drugs or sex to get to the customers. I have been teaching people to create a 5K fan base over however long it takes which can directly support you. You can speak to these people anywhere in the world with FREE tech any time you want. You can perform live to the WORLD, any time you want. And now you can put out an album that sounds as good as 99% of the rest of music in history with a little effort on your part, without going broke.

I have given up ZERO rights to my music. My melodies and lyrics have the EXACT same copyright protection as anything YOU do using no electronics at all. I own it fully the moment I fix it to a tangible medium. Writing down a lyric protects it. Recording protects your melodies. The rest is just processing and just like food production, we no longer need literal or figurative slavery to produce foods. Same with music. You don't need to blow the producer or sign your life and rights away to make something that people might like.

The developer doesn't own ANY copyright. Tech used to make music cannot receive any copyright protection. Your sampler or sequencer or synth or guitar amps all create sounds, but those manufacturers can't claim ownership of those sounds. They can't claim anything that comes out of A.I. either. The creators however, must participate significantly in creating a song to have rights. Well, I had secured all my rights before I even used A.I. at all, so it was a done deal already.

You really need to learn what you are talking about because you seem actually fearful. That is a silly way to live when the info is easy to find.

As for the rights to scan and analyze, what do you think HUMANS do? They scan and analyze and get inspired and quite often mimic everything that comes before. That is how music has always been passed down. Painters all paint the same flower pot over and over. They copy and share all their techniques. This commercial worry you have is silly in the first place. Commerce has been a short window nearly universally controlled by gatekeepers from corporate cabals who have exploited artists at every turn. This is taking power away from them. As Art, that is wonderful. As commerce, that is even better. When they automated the assembly line, those who built cars by hand were all replaced. Should we go back? No one would do those jobs anyway. Will this cause some people not to learn piano? I doubt it, it is still the most efficient tool to create music WITH technology. Guitars are now becoming digital without the need for strings and brand new instruments and methods are coming out, so future instruments are impossible to predict. But people use ALL these tools in interesting ways even with automated stuff available.

Only about 1 in a million songs will ever be heard by 1000 people or more. I am more excited by people bringing music into their lives than seeing the fraudulent "rock star" myth go away.

Most people do NOT play Grand Pianos because most people CAN'T afford one. Now everyone has a million variations of electronic keyboards. Who was harmed? The same rich people buy Grand Pianos as well as high end rich bands and artists and symphonies. But now the masses can also play an 88 key weighted keyboard. She will ALSO be able to make songs when her Grandpa visits telling funny stories about her stuffed animals and toys. That is ALSO amazing. She may never advance further, but she is already developing a love for creating with paint as well as on her tablet. Is that a problem? No. I is the same thing. And it is ALL good.

DEFINITELY NOT the same thing Brian. No matter what piano one uses, it still depends on creativity. The creativity of AI is similar to playing a video game with the illusion of being in the real game. The evolution of the piano is no different from the evolution of the guitar or other instruments. It's still a piano with the same keys. We're never going to see eye to eye on this. You are right about it not going away.

John

LOL...

OK, Brian... I get you.
Ultimately, if you put yourself out there, your intellectual property is going to be owned by someone else anyway... So, why fight it?

Answer= I'm old fashioned

There is no reason for anyone else to own your music unless YOU decide to sell it or trade it for something like money or help or a pass through a gate they keep control of. But no one forced any creator to sign bad deals (except some mafia dudes with guns now and then) but they did it because they wanted someone ELSE to handle the less fun parts of being a songwriter/artist. But plenty of people have kept all their rights. Susan Gibson, a JPF member, kept 100% of her publishing on Wide Open Spaces because she was a nobody and Sony never bothered to even ASK her for any portion of it until it was a #1 hit already. They never expected an outsider to slip through the cracks but she did.

WOW...
Help me out here, John.
Brian seems to think that the "AI Computers" connected to the "WWWeb" are trustworthy O_o

By The Way...

https://www.jpfolks.com/forum/ubbth...ends-birds-of-a-feather.html#Post1205857

https://www.jpfolks.com/forum/ubbth...set-poet-a-i-collection.html#Post1205810

Seems he's begging for it, Brian.

Now, they can send me a vocal track, a piano track etc. and I can match it up with the rest of the production, and that is all pre-A.I. tech! These features are still improving, but by next year when I am ready to put out a collection of songs that I have made with many of YOU, I expect it to be easy.

Do I understand this right, that I can send you a rough version of a song and you can give me a pro demo version of that song. Sounds too good to be true. That is what I've done over the years with demo studios, but it got too costly to do so I quit.

AI has been doing that for a while now, Everett...
The real question is "WHO OWNS IT WHEN IT'S DONE?"
Does "AI" reserve the right to re-use portions of your lyrics/music in other productions?

https://www.jpfolks.com/forum/ubbth...wo-hours-from-nashville.html#Post1201538

Not that it really matters... any "AI.crawler" can easily steal anything it wants from anything posted on the WWWeb.

In fact... It's highly likely that some enormous "AI cloud bank" already claims ownership of all intellectual property on the WEB.

How do you think AI learns?

So far I've steered clear of AI and I'm just about finished writing, only one or two songs a week, mostly Gospel, so I don't think I will go AI now, but I don't blame anyone for going that way, a lot cheaper than demo studios.

I've never been any good at gospel...

I prefer "Christian Friendly"

The Gospel I write is more Country Gospel or Christian Country, Southern Gospel, even bluegrass Gospel, some adult contemporary Gospel but not much that would be considered hymns. P&W sometimes.

Well, maybe AI will create a category for Christians who don't play on Sunday

I look at the music created by an AI machine as a "work for hire". I am paying someone to produce something for me.

Back when I first decided to become a songwriter I remember seeing advertisements for a songwriting service that, for 250 dollars, would set your lyrics (or even just an idea) to music and create a finished demo for you to keep and/or sell, with you as the copyright owner. At the time I thought it must be a pretty bad song to only cost 250. I didn't have 250 to try it out, so I don't know.

A few years after that I met a guy who does a critique for hire service. He told me he knew enough about song structure and what the country music industry is looking for to write a song about literally anything. It was the idea that makes the difference. He was very careful not to tell me exactly what to change because that would be co- writing. So, for a fee, he told me the lines that should be fixed, but not what to say. Which is like asking GPS how do I get to a particular address and it says "go east and then south". I can tell if a lyric is "off", but not always why or how to fix it. The nice thing about SNUO and AI song crafting sites is that I can see my errors instantly. I can hear the line sung in whatever genre I want and adjust it right then. So far what I have used it for is to fix the lyrics I wrote years ago but abandoned. The fact that it comes up with some interesting music at times is a bonus. I may use some of it or may not. Either way I paid for it. Not much, but I paid.

I know there are purists in everything. Clapton quit several bands because they drifted away from the blues. I remember arguing with someone (on a now defunct songwriting site) about using a rhyming dictionary or even a regular dictionary. He thought they were cheating. I also know there are those who take every shortcut they can to reach the finish line. I personally don't think there is a finish line and if anyone wants to either do it it the hard way or do it the easy way, that's up to them. We all have our own measure of success.

I guess you're right...
For example; If you hired me for a guitar track in your song, then I used your track to help someone else finish another song... What could you possibly do about it?

Hit "ignore" on him and end any further interaction. He won't see you and vice versa. You guys really aren't going to stop until one or all of you get banned, is that the goal?

More like - I hire you for ten dollars to add a guitar riff to a song and then someone else hires you to play a similar riff in their song. I'd still own the song. So would the other person. And you'd have twenty dollars.
I've done work for hire before. There was a bunch of forms to sign releasing the right to my performance. Now it's in a movie somewhere and someone gets residuals. I got a paycheck.

The legal goundwork has now decided that ANY public facing music can be used, without compensation, to train A.I. just like humans. The battle was ALWAYS going to go this way, I have been writing about it for DECADES in the newsletter and all around here and elsewhere. Those who trained the A.I. have ZERO representation in any of this. It has been taken, as it always has, but the same gatekeepers who keep worthy music off charts, outside of commercial relevance and groveling for scraps or less. Using the tech is the ONLY benefit artists will ever get. Avoiding it will only further punish you. Your music, if you post it or sell it, once in "public" is 100% used by them. You can't stop it. If you can spend MILLIONS of dollars litigating, you might (might!) get a pittance reward, but most likely will just be out millions. These companies have billions to do whatever they want in the halls of power. So if you ever posted a lyric online, it has already been used by A.I. If you ever posted music online, it is already theirs to use. You can't stop it unless you hoard it to yourself. But where does THAT get you? 99.9999999% of music created is never heard by anyone beyond the creators inner circle. Your music, whether you like it or not, is in that majority, just like mine So, you can use the tech to boost your productivity and create MORE art for yourself (the #1 benefactor of music creation in all circumstances) or you can keep banging your head into the limitations of NOT using it and the result will be the same, the same small or non existent audience will hear it and A.I. will still be one of those audience members if it is EVER poster publicly on ANY site. And you will NEVER be compensated for it.