AI: Taking The Muse Out Of Music

I’ve been saying for awhile now that AI (Artificial Intelligence) is going to explode in music, and we have now started seeing the first fruits of it.

I’ve heard attempts to ‘reunite’ Oasis by getting an artificial Liam to sing the vocal on some of Noel’s solo tracks. For that was what all the classic Oasis anthems were, weren’t they? Liam belting out the tunes that his brother had created. Bring those two ingredients together, the thinking goes, and there you have it: an Oasis for today.

The estranged Gallagher brothers.

There’s also been some efforts to put The Beatles back together by having an artificial John sing on some Paul solo songs and vice versa.

We have already seen the two reunited on stage in Paul’s live shows, where he utilises the technology provided by Peter Jackson to perform their old duet I’ve Got A Feeling.

Of course, as an old Beatle fan I was touched by this, but I’m not sure about everything else. Yes, I’ve always rued the fact that they split up and have even made playlists of songs by each of the Fab Four to try and imagine how subsequent Beatles albums over the years might have appeared. That doesn’t allow, though, for the ‘missing songs’ that would have been created by the magic of them working together and inspiring each other again.

Some of the AI ones that I’ve listened to sound better than others, but we have to remember that this technology is still in its infancy. God knows where it’s going to leave copyright laws.

I’ve also heard about AI being ‘fed’ every existing Beatles song, studio tracks, singles, live performances and outtakes for it to come up with ‘new’ Beatles songs and albums.

I don’t like the sound of that. I’ve read a quote that making music is a universal human trait that goes back to at least 35,000 years ago.

This is art with no heart. It is precisely why I don’t like manufactured groups put together on talent show programmes. The best groups all grew organically, honing their sound and style and working their arses off for years to get their break.

Within this revolution there are also music videos that you can watch that are made wholly of images created by AI while the music is being played.

(And, speaking of images, who can forget the ABBA avatars that took up residency in London last year?)

The real Lennon and McCartney, we presume?

And of course: every giant leap provides a giant opportunity for the scammers. We’ve all seen the emails and text messages, pretending to be from someone known to us, sometimes not known to us, claiming to be in desperate circumstances and needing financial help.

Now, in an attempt to be more convincing, there are cases of our voices being cloned by artificial intelligence and used to ring our unsuspecting loved ones, where a recognisable ‘us’ can ask for the money directly.

We are being advised to agree code words with each other in an effort to combat this.

What a world we are living in. Where is it heading?

There is no reason and no way that a human mind can keep up with an artificial intelligence machine by 2035.

Stephen Hawking

Forty Years Down The Line

Imagine Lennon today. He’d have been brilliant on Twitter.

Also for your perusal, an earlier City Jackdaw post about cosmic connections: Lennon, Morrison, and me:

https://cityjackdaw.wordpress.com/2014/12/08/entrances-and-exitsmorrison-and-lennon/

#80 Dream

John Lennon would have been eighty today. Can you imagine that? The founder of The Beatles being an octogenarian. He’s now been dead for the same number of years that he lived, and there’s always a sadness in that. It’s hard to consider the life without the tragic end. But we must try.

The other morning I downloaded this and listened to it over a coffee in McDonald’s.

A two-parter, it features both Sean and Julian Lennon for the first time speaking publicly about their father. Sean also interviews his Godfather, Elton John, and also Lennon’s songwriting partner Paul McCartney.

Speaking to the latter, Sean mentioned how Love Me Do was written before The Beatles existed as the group we all know, and asked if there were other such early songs? Paul confirmed that there were, for example One After 909 and I Saw Her Standing There. Commenting that they were such strong songs that still stand today, Sean asked did they ever write any bad songs or did they always strike gold straight away?

When Paul replied that there were bad ones, the reaction was along the lines of Oh, thank Christ for that!

I guess that gives hope to we mere mortals, scribbling along in the sand.

Sean also asked about Paul’s first meeting with his father, which I guess every fan knows took place on the 6th July 1957, when John’s skiffle band The Quarry Men were performing at a church fete.

What I didn’t know was that Paul had seen John around a few times before this, but that he didn’t know him. A couple of times he’d caught Paul’s eye when on the same bus, when John would have been travelling to see his mother. Paul had thought that Lennon had looked cool, sporting the rebellious, Teddy Boy look of the time. Then another time he saw him in the queue at a chippy, thinking hey, that’s the guy from the bus. But at this point they’d still never spoke to each other.

That all changed when mutual friend Ivan Vaughan took Paul so see John playing at the fete, and the penny dropped that his friend’s friend was the same guy he’d been noticing around the neighbourhood.

This is artist Eric Cash’s conception of John and Paul’s introductory meeting in the church hall after the performance.

Sometimes in life it seems like the paths of certain individuals keep crossing. The universe has a way of bringing together people who are meant to meet.

Just this morning I saw this image posted, announcing the birth of a young son to Julia and Alfred Lennon.

Who could have had any idea at the time, when skimming the announcements in the local newspaper, the impact that that boy would have on the world?

I wonder about those other babies, too, for example the Looney daughter stated immediately below the Lennon son. What life did she go on to lead? Did she ever know the brief illustrious company that she once shared in her origin? Did she go on to impact the world in some other, less celebrated way?

Eighty years on, I was draining the last of my coffee as Sean finished the show with:

Here’s wishing a Happy Birthday to my Dad. People may grow old, but great music never does.

And that’s true. All art is nailed at the time in a form that lasts forever, untouched by shifting context and the changing mores.

The Groove Of Remembering

John Lennon would have been eighty in a couple of days. I have a short post about that which I shall post then.

In the meantime, I’ve been sat up tonight seeking out some of his lesser known tracks which I’ve not listened to for a number of years.

And speaking of years, what a year this has been. What would John have made of it?

What do you make of it?

Sometimes it’s good to tune out and tune in, switch off and switch on, falling back into the groove of remembering simpler times.

I’m tuning out now and will tune in later.

Sleep easy, friends.

Entrances And Exits/Morrison And Lennon

The 8th of December is a date that links together my two favourite musical artists, two artists that I have been listening to for what seems most of my life.

On the 8th of December, 1943, James Douglas Morrison, son of a Navy Officer, was born. He would go on to become the focal point and frontman of The Doors, known by self-given and tongue in cheek epithets such as the Lizard King, Shaman, and Erotic Politician.

He is one of the few rock or pop stars whose poetry is read seriously, as poetry. As a poet he tends to polarise opinion, but I like his writing, and his song lyrics helped to set the group apart from the usual music crowd. In the days when The Mama’s And The Papa’s were dreaming of California and over the pond The Beatles were telling the world that all you need is love, Morrison was channeling Oedipus, saying he wanted to kill his father and fuck his mother. They were a darker group, harder to pigeonhole, with elements of rock, jazz, blues, and yes, poetry.

Morrison’s was an intellect and creativity that was drowned in excess, a pursuit of a muse that would not be tempered or compromised. The recording life of The Doors, when Morrison was with them, lasted for just four, short, years. But what an outpouring it was.

Also on the 8th of December, in 1980, John Lennon was shot dead in New York. I was a Lennon fan before I even knew who Lennon was. As a kid, almost all of my favourite Beatles songs were his. On his true collaborations with McCartney, for example We Can Work It Out, I always preferred the parts that he sang, the parts that he wrote, without at the time being able to discern who did what.

My favourite Christmas song, right from my childhood, and still, is Happy Xmas (War Is Over), but it was a few years before I discovered that the song was by Lennon. I was a fan of the music before I knew whose music it was.

Today Lennon is regarded almost as a saint, but the truth seems to be that he could be a real shit to the people who were closest to him. He would sing about peace and love yet at times be unable to demonstrate such sentiments. The figure of Lennon is a conundrum. He appeared to be a man of contradictions, which I think has its roots in his troubled childhood. His anger drove him and so made him a Beatle. Always transparent, the lyrics

I heard something ’bout my Ma and my Pa /They didn’t want me so they made me a star 

stand out.

Tomorrow, the 9th of December, is my birthday. I can remember opening my birthday presents on my ninth birthday, back in 1980, and the news was all over the television and the newspapers. All that I was aware of at the time, in my young ignorance, was that some guy who was in a group called The Beatles had died.

Little would I know that, for years, for decades later, I would always be struck by a terrible sense of waste when reflecting on his untimely, senseless death.

Fans are selfish. We barely see beyond our own wants and fixations.

There is a woman who lost a husband, and two boys who lost a father, yet all I think of is the music that we could have had, the wit that the world has lost, and the extra pages that could have been in the biography.

And that’s got to be wrong.

Two men, linked by one date, whose words and music provided a soundtrack to my life. R.I.P Mr Mojo Risin’ and Dr Winston O’ Boogie. Thanks for the inspiration.

Entrances And Exits/Morrison And Lennon

On this day, the 8th of December, my two long-time favourite artists are linked irrevocably. In Memory and Gratitude:

City Jackdaw

The 8th of December is a date that links together my two favourite musical artists, two artists that I have been listening to for what seems most of my life.

On the 8th of December, 1943, James Douglas Morrison, son of a Navy Officer, was born. He would go on to become the focal point and frontman of The Doors, known by such self-given and tongue in cheek epithets such as the Lizard King, Shaman, and Erotic Politician.

He is one of the few rock or pop stars whose poetry is read seriously, as poetry. As a poet he tends to polarise opinion, but I like his writing, and his song lyrics helped to set the group apart from the usual music crowd. In the days when The Mama’s And The Papa’s were dreaming of California and over the pond The Beatles were telling the world that all you need…

View original post 488 more words

For John, From Paul, George And Ringo

I was a John Lennon fan before I knew who John Lennon was.

My earliest recollection of him was unfortunately of the ‘what was you doing when you heard?’ variety.  I was opening my presents on the morning of the 9th of December, which just so happened to be my ninth birthday. I remember seeing a newspaper lying around nearby, headlines screaming of his murder that had taken place the night before. I had no idea who he was, I just had a vague notion that he used to be in a musical group called The Beatles, and seemed pretty well known.

That was about it.

As time went on, and I gradually became familiar with the group whose music seemed to be omnipresent, I just thought of them as a collective, rather than four individuals. I didn’t know who wrote and sang what. But then, in my early teens, as my interest and love of their music deepened, I found that the majority of my favourite Beatles songs were John’s. And of the songs that were bonafide collaborations between John and Paul, my preference was for his parts, for example on We Can Work It Out, and A Day In The Life. Not exclusively, but generally.

From my younger days, every time the festive season transformed the usual fayre of the radio stations, my favourite Christmas song was always Happy Xmas (War Is Over), many years before I discovered that this was in fact a Lennon song.

I was a John Lennon fan, but wasn’t aware of it yet.

But now I am not as ignorant. I  am a fully-fledged Fab Four nerd, and could bore you rigid with tons of throwaway trivia. Relax-I won’t.

On this, the thirty-fifth anniversary of John Lennon’s death, I will leave it to his friends to make the tribute, as they sought healing through creativity in the aftermath of that December night.

The first video, a montage of photographs, is of the moving song Here Today, released by Paul McCartney on his album Tug Of War, less than two years after the killing of his former songwriting buddy. ‘And if I said I really knew you well what would your answer be?’ ‘Knowing you, you’d probably laugh and say that we were worlds apart.’

The second video, containing photographs and film footage, is of the song All Those Years Ago, by George Harrison. It was released just five months after Lennon’s death, and, with Ringo Starr on drums and Paul McCartney on backing vocals, it was the first time that all three had appeared on the same recording since The Beatles. ‘Living with good and bad, I always looked up to you.’

R.I.P John, from Paul, George and Ringo.

Entrances And Exits/Morrison And Lennon

The 8th of December is a date that links together my two favourite musical artists, two artists that I have been listening to for what seems most of my life.

On the 8th of December, 1943, James Douglas Morrison, son of a Navy Officer, was born. He would go on to become the focal point and frontman of The Doors, known by such self-given and tongue in cheek epithets such as the Lizard King, Shaman, and Erotic Politician.

He is one of the few rock or pop stars whose poetry is read seriously, as poetry. As a poet he tends to polarise opinion, but I like his writing, and his song lyrics helped to set the group apart from the usual music crowd. In the days when The Mama’s And The Papa’s were dreaming of California and over the pond The Beatles were telling the world that all you need is love, Morrison was channeling Oedipus, saying he wanted to kill his father and fuck his mother. They were a darker group, harder to pigeonhole, with elements of rock, jazz, blues, and yes, poetry.

Morrison’s was an intellect and creativity that was drowned in excess, a pursuit of a muse that would not be tempered or compromised. The recording life of The Doors, when Morrison was with them, lasted for just four, short, years. But what an outpouring it was.

Also on the 8th of December, in 1980, John Lennon was shot dead in New York. I was a Lennon fan before I even knew who Lennon was. As a kid, almost all of my favourite Beatles songs were his. On his true collaborations with McCartney, for example We Can Work It Out, I always preferred the parts that he sang, the parts that he wrote, without at the time being able to discern who did what.

My favourite Christmas song, right from my childhood, and still, is Happy Xmas (War Is Over), but it was a few years before I discovered that the song was by Lennon. I was a fan of the music before I knew whose music it was.

Today Lennon is regarded almost as a saint, but the truth seems to be that he could be a real shit to the people who were closest to him. He would sing about peace and love yet at times be unable to demonstrate such sentiments. The figure of Lennon is a conundrum. He appeared to be a man of contradictions, which I think has its roots in his troubled childhood. His anger drove him and so made him a Beatle. Always transparent, the lyrics

I heard something ’bout my Ma and my Pa /They didn’t want me so they made me a star 

stand out.

Tomorrow, the 9th of December, is my birthday. I can remember opening my birthday presents on my ninth birthday, back in 1980, and the news was all over the television and the newspapers. All that I was aware of at the time, in my young ignorance, was that some guy who was in a group called The Beatles had died.

Little would I know that, for years, for decades later, I would always be struck by a terrible sense of waste when reflecting on his untimely, senseless death.

Fans are selfish. We barely see beyond our own wants and fixations.

There is a woman who lost a husband, and two boys who lost a father, yet all I think of is the music that we could have had, the wit that the world has lost, and the extra pages that could have been in the biography.

And that’s got to be wrong.

Two men, linked by one date, whose words and music provided a soundtrack to my life. R.I.P Mr Mojo Risin’ and Dr Winston O’ Boogie. Thanks for the inspiration.