AI IN MI I BY BRENDAN ALVIANI Creating Music with AI
T here are now some powerful AI tools for generating mu- sic in just a few minutes — in any genre, with lyrics, sung by a very convincing AI voice. While most people haven’t heard of Suno or Udio yet, they soon will, and you, as a music retailer, should be prepared. After all, these companies have ambitions of being bigger than Spotify, with tens of millions of dollars in capital to try and make that happen as quickly as possible. As these AI music generators get more press in the news, why
HARNESSING AI BUZZ IN-STORE Now, take a look at your business. How can your store benefit from this excitement? Consider your lessons pro- gram first. Perhaps work with your teachers to incorporate more songwriting in the lesson room, utilizing these tools to get kids more excited about making music — and staying enrolled in lessons. On the retail side, perhaps re- tool any home-recording depart- ment to help customers take their AI-generated music to the next level by helping them record with their own voice or add their own flavor into their creations. Do you feature live music in your store? Consider hosting re- curring “AI Open Mic Nights.” It’s something that these AI music creators really crave, and these are the folks who really want to take their music to the next level, so you’ll want them in your store. As a business owner, I admit, I fear what these tools may do to our product sales. But as a con- sumer, I find they have really rekindled my passion for song- writing and music-making in a way that gives me hope that this could be the next Garage Band, Guitar Hero or even Beatlesma- nia. As a retailer, we have to bal- ance these considerations. The first step? Diving in and learning about this upcoming change. MI Brendan Alviani is the president of Family Piano Co in Waukegan, Illinois, by day, but has spent every day for over a year learning about artificial intelligence for various side projects. Here, he hopes to use his English degree from Vanderbilt to distill the most relevant AI info for the MI community. He welcomes feedback at Brendan@FamilyPiano.com.
not educate yourself on the topic? Here’s what you need to know about these technologies as someone in the world of MI. EDUCATE YOURSELF First off, I’d recommend going to those websites and listening to the range of what people are producing — from the incredibly creative mash-ups to the lazy AI slop. Listen carefully to learn the tell-tale signs of AI- generation: slight vocal distortions, the all-too-perfect way everything lines up, the all-too-sudden starts to most songs and more. Second, I’d recommend trying to create a song yourself. Look at the prompts other people are using and branch out from there. Try using the machine- generated lyrics versus your own lyrics. Try using just
your laptop, but also experiment with uploading your own audio files to see where the AI can take it. Make some instrumental music and/or work in a genre you’re not very familiar with. Third, if you’re a paying user, you can try putting the music you created to use. How easy is it to add it as a bumper to your YouTube videos, especially versus using the built-in YouTube stock music? Fourth, keep up with the legal cases being made against some of the biggest AI music gen- erators Suno and Udio. The major labels have made a pretty compelling case that Suno and Udio have each extensively trained their models
AI music generators, like Suno and Udio, let anyone generate a song in just a few minutes, but how can MI retailers harness the buzz of this new tech?
on a vast collection of copyrighted materials without permission or compensation, under a pretty flimsy pretense of “fair use.” While the RIAA is wasting no time in trying to go after companies who are actively infringing on their copyrights, it’s worth noting that even if Suno and Udio are sued out of business, the underlying technology isn’t going anywhere. Google and YouTube, as well as other companies, are actively working with artists and labels to release similar technology in the future.
30 I MUSIC INC. I AUGUST 2024
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