On the subject of AI Music generation, I just started dabbling in these systems inspired by Vox, to produce a comedic song about dysfunctional family dynamics as part of a business I am building. The other morning, my child was slow eating breakfast and I had been up late playing with the AI music systems so it was fresh in my head. I told a Music GBT bot that I wanted a song about my child and how they need to eat their breakfast faster, which is eggs. I gave it one line I wanted included: "[Name], [Name], Eat Your Eggs" as I had been singing that line to my child. Once I had some funny lyrics, which took like 20 seconds, I put those lyrics into a system that generates full songs with vocals, instruments, etc. I told it I wanted the song to be catchy, fun, comedic, and stick in your head. Less than 5 minutes later I played the song for my child, who giggled and quickly ate their eggs (before they sprouted some little legs!), and then they sang the song all day long. Its not too tricky learn the basics about this stuff and I have had quite a lot of fun with it.
This is completely unexplored territory for me as a musician, but I find it very interesting. Is AI assisting with melodies and lyrics or is it playing different arrangements for songs you've already written?
Re. AI and creativity, while it might be a little understandable that artists and writers find it threatening, used correctly a wise creator should simply embrace it as just another available tool in one's wheelhouse. I suppose the distinction is whether one sees it as a catalyst and refining tool or as a crutch meant to do all the work. Which it might, but it probably won't be right. I have a few projects which, had it been available at the time, would probably have benefitted from a little AI assistance.
During the course of my military service, the most common refrain heard: "I regret not joining." The reasons were varied, but the common thread for most of them was simply inertia. Some people seem to fear authoring their own story, lest something go wrong.
"The lesson, as always, is this: if you want to win, you have to play the game."
Amen. I bootstrapped a software company from my basement starting when I was 33. Over the next 15 years I ran it up to more than a million in revenue/month, creating solid software solving large, complex problems across a wide variety of industries. It's a pretty good bet that you've used software developed by that company. Starting in 2007, a competitor used a corrupt federal judge to destroy it all via lawfare, ending in 2010, four years of lawsuit hell, eventually slashing my net worth by over 90%, and leaving me with the IRS chasing what little I had left.
The most disappointing part of the entire ordeal was having people I'd known for thirty years contemplating what I must've done wrong to have a federal court destroy my life's work. They simply could not bring themselves to believe the extent of the judicial corruption, even those who were intimately involved in my business. It's certainly an extreme edge case, thankfully, but this experience has transformed this natural alpha into at least the life pattern of the sigma, for better or worse.
Experiencing rank injustice changes a man profoundly. I'm not proud that it took me nearly a year to start putting one foot in front of the other again, but I eventually did. I'm very happy to report that I started a software company with my youngest son six years ago. It was an arduous start, but we've doubled in revenue three years in a row and we're going to double again in 2025. If I don't age out we should exceed my old company's revenue in 2028 with fewer than half as many people and much higher profit. Lord willing, my goal is to have this company helping my children's children's children long after I'm gone. Time will tell.
What have I learned? The world really is a testing ground, not Heaven, and God is ever faithful, using adversity to mold His people, creating warriors out of mere men. Take courage!
Afterword: The man who instigated the theft died young, five years ago, not of my hand. And God will deal with the corrupt judge and his other accomplices in His own good time. I sleep deeply and well.
Wow, your experience particularly with the "friends" who contemplated what you must've done wrong is right out of the book of Job. Before the younger Elihu puts in his two cents, Job's supposedly wiser and older friends Eliphaz, Bildad, & Zophar contemplate the same darn thing and imply Job must've done something wrong for such calamity to befall him.
Bravo to you for bootstrapping back up with your son! That cannot have been and will likely not remain an easy thing. Best wishes and God bless you. I hope His will for you matches your own desires but know that even if it does not, He has a broader view we cannot even comprehend and would surely use it to further a higher Good. Thank You for sharing your experience, Rob.
Well said. Really appreciate the real life stories.
The one who loses can make any number of excuses like the sluggard in proverbs crying "there's a lion outside roaming the streets!" Vs the one who puts in the effort making use of his skills no matter the talent "standing before kings" .
I went to Marine Corps Officer Candidate School in winter 2018. I was a great candidate on paper, but not physically prepared, as I had started from a low level of physical fitness and trained specifically for the PFT. I also did not possess the ability to lead the other men in my platoon effectively. So I was dropped the second-to-last week of training.
I look back on that as the best time of my life. I got eight weeks of awesome training, plus the previous months of working up to it. And my physical fitness today is far beyond what it was then.
One of the things that puzzled me in my youth were the "friends" who would try to talk me down when I told them my plans to learn new things, challenge myself, or look for a better job. They would turn all of my self improvement into something negative, and would refuse most of my attempts to pull them up with me.
The two Gammas in my life were by far the most toxic, but even a couple of the Deltas tried to hold me back.
The Alphas were always enthusiastic about new opportunities, and pulled me out of my shell. They were usually the ones willing to try new things, go to new places, and generally take risks.
Easy to see how choosing to surround yourself with one group vs the other would result in wildly different outcomes.
Suno and Udio are great, it's livened up our game sessions with unique music and even a personalized theme song. What a time to be alive, when else can you hire a band to perform for you and ruthlessly edit their work for free? A performing artist joked that they spent years learning to sing and play when they could have just waited for AI while a sound engineer, in contrast, loves making a song then testing it in multiple genres. He said it lacks 'depth' but excitedly added that 99% of people wouldn't notice.
Incidentally someone posted the most genX song I've heard in it. It has soldiers, robot dystopia, video game terminology, incompetent management, pointless death, a guitar solo and mostly cursing. "Fustercluck":
To show off suno, someone took it and immediately spun it around as a jazz song by keeping the same lyrics and altering the genre prompt. It's amazing stuff, everyone try it now!:
“I was trained by the best. British intelligence. But in retrospect I would rather have been a poet. Or a farmer.” Choose wisely what to be a winner at.
On the subject of AI Music generation, I just started dabbling in these systems inspired by Vox, to produce a comedic song about dysfunctional family dynamics as part of a business I am building. The other morning, my child was slow eating breakfast and I had been up late playing with the AI music systems so it was fresh in my head. I told a Music GBT bot that I wanted a song about my child and how they need to eat their breakfast faster, which is eggs. I gave it one line I wanted included: "[Name], [Name], Eat Your Eggs" as I had been singing that line to my child. Once I had some funny lyrics, which took like 20 seconds, I put those lyrics into a system that generates full songs with vocals, instruments, etc. I told it I wanted the song to be catchy, fun, comedic, and stick in your head. Less than 5 minutes later I played the song for my child, who giggled and quickly ate their eggs (before they sprouted some little legs!), and then they sang the song all day long. Its not too tricky learn the basics about this stuff and I have had quite a lot of fun with it.
"by using AI to assist with the composition"
This is completely unexplored territory for me as a musician, but I find it very interesting. Is AI assisting with melodies and lyrics or is it playing different arrangements for songs you've already written?
Absolutely. Take your shot. What's the worst that can happen? You don't succeed and you learn better for your next chance.
Re. AI and creativity, while it might be a little understandable that artists and writers find it threatening, used correctly a wise creator should simply embrace it as just another available tool in one's wheelhouse. I suppose the distinction is whether one sees it as a catalyst and refining tool or as a crutch meant to do all the work. Which it might, but it probably won't be right. I have a few projects which, had it been available at the time, would probably have benefitted from a little AI assistance.
"I’ll be releasing no less than ELEVEN (11) songs on all the various music platforms over the next week"
Looking forward to this.
During the course of my military service, the most common refrain heard: "I regret not joining." The reasons were varied, but the common thread for most of them was simply inertia. Some people seem to fear authoring their own story, lest something go wrong.
"The lesson, as always, is this: if you want to win, you have to play the game."
Amen. I bootstrapped a software company from my basement starting when I was 33. Over the next 15 years I ran it up to more than a million in revenue/month, creating solid software solving large, complex problems across a wide variety of industries. It's a pretty good bet that you've used software developed by that company. Starting in 2007, a competitor used a corrupt federal judge to destroy it all via lawfare, ending in 2010, four years of lawsuit hell, eventually slashing my net worth by over 90%, and leaving me with the IRS chasing what little I had left.
The most disappointing part of the entire ordeal was having people I'd known for thirty years contemplating what I must've done wrong to have a federal court destroy my life's work. They simply could not bring themselves to believe the extent of the judicial corruption, even those who were intimately involved in my business. It's certainly an extreme edge case, thankfully, but this experience has transformed this natural alpha into at least the life pattern of the sigma, for better or worse.
Experiencing rank injustice changes a man profoundly. I'm not proud that it took me nearly a year to start putting one foot in front of the other again, but I eventually did. I'm very happy to report that I started a software company with my youngest son six years ago. It was an arduous start, but we've doubled in revenue three years in a row and we're going to double again in 2025. If I don't age out we should exceed my old company's revenue in 2028 with fewer than half as many people and much higher profit. Lord willing, my goal is to have this company helping my children's children's children long after I'm gone. Time will tell.
What have I learned? The world really is a testing ground, not Heaven, and God is ever faithful, using adversity to mold His people, creating warriors out of mere men. Take courage!
Afterword: The man who instigated the theft died young, five years ago, not of my hand. And God will deal with the corrupt judge and his other accomplices in His own good time. I sleep deeply and well.
Wow, your experience particularly with the "friends" who contemplated what you must've done wrong is right out of the book of Job. Before the younger Elihu puts in his two cents, Job's supposedly wiser and older friends Eliphaz, Bildad, & Zophar contemplate the same darn thing and imply Job must've done something wrong for such calamity to befall him.
Bravo to you for bootstrapping back up with your son! That cannot have been and will likely not remain an easy thing. Best wishes and God bless you. I hope His will for you matches your own desires but know that even if it does not, He has a broader view we cannot even comprehend and would surely use it to further a higher Good. Thank You for sharing your experience, Rob.
Coming back from that kind of betrayal is heartening to witness. We may lose everything, but it isn't the end until we give up our last breath.
Well said. Really appreciate the real life stories.
The one who loses can make any number of excuses like the sluggard in proverbs crying "there's a lion outside roaming the streets!" Vs the one who puts in the effort making use of his skills no matter the talent "standing before kings" .
Well said. I've been taking that shot as a fiction writer for the last ten years. Leave the slugs behind. Even a snail can go on a quest.
Failure has to be acceptable.
I went to Marine Corps Officer Candidate School in winter 2018. I was a great candidate on paper, but not physically prepared, as I had started from a low level of physical fitness and trained specifically for the PFT. I also did not possess the ability to lead the other men in my platoon effectively. So I was dropped the second-to-last week of training.
I look back on that as the best time of my life. I got eight weeks of awesome training, plus the previous months of working up to it. And my physical fitness today is far beyond what it was then.
So I didn’t earn the EGA, but I’m glad I tried.
What did you do afterwards?
One of the things that puzzled me in my youth were the "friends" who would try to talk me down when I told them my plans to learn new things, challenge myself, or look for a better job. They would turn all of my self improvement into something negative, and would refuse most of my attempts to pull them up with me.
The two Gammas in my life were by far the most toxic, but even a couple of the Deltas tried to hold me back.
The Alphas were always enthusiastic about new opportunities, and pulled me out of my shell. They were usually the ones willing to try new things, go to new places, and generally take risks.
Easy to see how choosing to surround yourself with one group vs the other would result in wildly different outcomes.
The SSH is an incredible tool.
Suno and Udio are great, it's livened up our game sessions with unique music and even a personalized theme song. What a time to be alive, when else can you hire a band to perform for you and ruthlessly edit their work for free? A performing artist joked that they spent years learning to sing and play when they could have just waited for AI while a sound engineer, in contrast, loves making a song then testing it in multiple genres. He said it lacks 'depth' but excitedly added that 99% of people wouldn't notice.
Incidentally someone posted the most genX song I've heard in it. It has soldiers, robot dystopia, video game terminology, incompetent management, pointless death, a guitar solo and mostly cursing. "Fustercluck":
https://suno.com/song/963d528a-3de2-45c3-b15a-f809282deb4d
To show off suno, someone took it and immediately spun it around as a jazz song by keeping the same lyrics and altering the genre prompt. It's amazing stuff, everyone try it now!:
https://suno.com/song/a6f9a925-38ef-4ba5-aff7-836ce23a0851
“I was trained by the best. British intelligence. But in retrospect I would rather have been a poet. Or a farmer.” Choose wisely what to be a winner at.
Take the shot he said.
So I took the shot: https://substack.com/home/post/p-152919868
AI lyrics are far too much fun and you don't even have to write them.
"Forget Maui."
Whoa whoa that never occurred to me to use it for instrumentation! What AI do you use for that?
I have 0 pride about using AI in art. It gives me access to capacities I lost and some I never had. 2025 is gonna be freaking epic.