What AI (Might) Mean For Songwriting

How the role of computers in the creative arts has changed! It wasn’t very long ago that using a computer in music practically always meant using it in some aspect of sound synthesis. So you’d use a computer, or computerized device to generate a particular kind of sound.

And at those times, a big challenge for the listener might have been trying to figure out if the sound they were hearing was an orchestra, or a simulated one.

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Of course, computers were being used in a lot of different ways that were less noticeable, like being the primary way we might record music (as opposed to analog/tape recording), and playing music (digital sound rendering as opposed to the more analog process of dragging a needle through a vinyl groove).

But with the recent emergence of artificial intelligence (AI), the world of possibilities has exploded in ways that have left the industry reeling. The latest news-making items include the generation of songs as if they were written by any chosen artist, and then sung by an AI-generated voice meant to mimic that artist.

The most famous recent example (as of this writing, July 17, 2023) is the AI-generated tune “Heart on My Sleeve“, meant to sound like a Drake/The Weeknd collaboration. (That link may soon not work, as, in another sign that the industry is being challenged by this strange new world, links have been appearing and disappearing. But you’ll always be able to find it if you pop it into YouTube, probably forever.)

AI and Songwriting

Leaving all that (the notion of AI-generated voices and musical performances) behind for the moment, what does all this mean for your songwriting? Does AI render your efforts useless? Does it even make any sense to keep trying to write a song, when AI will be able to generate hundreds of songs with a click or two of a button?

There are stories of songwriters before the advent of the computer being depressed or otherwise crushed by the musical prowess of contemporaries. Brian Wilson apparently fell into a depression as the more-or-less direct result of the pressures felt from the enormous success of the Beatles and the so-called British Invasion of the 1960s.

When you hear someone else’s song, and it sounds great, and everyone’s attention is on that other song, it can make you feel that your own songs can’t get the oxygen they need. It can make you wonder if it’s all worth it.

So imagine the feeling when it seems that AI can immediately understand the popular style of the day, and then “write” a song meant to attract the greatest number of fans. Why even bother trying to do it yourself?

In a Way, Nothing’s Changed

In a certain way, nothing has really changed for today’s songwriters. Sure, AI can be generating songs at the tap of a button, but none of that means that your own songs can’t be as powerful and as meaningful as they’ve always or ever been.

AI might be able to sound like someone, but that’s not the same thing as saying that they are someone. And there is one thing AI can’t do at the moment, and that is to replace you and your musical mind.

You have a built-in ability to be genuine, and to pull musical elements together in a way that is uniquely you. Your musical vision and resulting songs that come from that vision will always be relevant and distinctive.

In that sense, as I say, nothing has changed. Even as I sit here and write these thoughts into my blog, I’m quite aware that I could simply get AI to give me a 600-word essay on the effects of AI in the songwriting world.

The problem is, it would probably be very correct, and would give you the info you want and need, but it wouldn’t be me. And even if it gave you the same points that I would give, it wouldn’t be my “voice.” That may become debatable soon, but my point is that I’ll always be me, always offering my take on things.

So for whatever that’s worth to us all, I’ll just remind you all as songwriters that your music is still important, still valid, and still needed. We want to hear you.

Keep writing!

Written by Gary Ewer. Follow Gary on Twitter

Thousands of songwriters are using “The Essential Secrets of Songwriting” eBook bundle to polish their songwriting technique. Every aspect of how to make a song better is covered. Stop wasting time — take your songwriting technique to a new level TODAY. Ten eBooks, plus a free one: $37 USD (Immediate download)