Mark Henry Phillips
Appearances
Plain English with Derek Thompson
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
So my take is... It is definitely, definitely stealing quote-unquote voices. That is the strings of a Bernard Herrmann recording. That is the, you know, there was a harp being plucked in the background and a trumpet. Like, those are the instruments from real Bernard Herrmann recordings. I don't think the melody and the performances are stealing from an actual composition for very long.
Plain English with Derek Thompson
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
I think it probably only happens for like a microsecond, and then the AI kind of goes in a different direction than the original composition does. So I think it's stealing But it's just kind of randomly coming up with melodies, orchestrations, arrangements that are perfectly like Bernard Herrmann, but not the exact same thing he did on Psycho or, you know, whatever.
Plain English with Derek Thompson
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
I mean, yes, I think it could replace a lot of my work. Commercial stuff, film composing, podcast composing. Why would you hire someone who charges you a fair price for the time it takes and for sort of the licensing of the music when you could use one of these things produce 10 tracks in an hour and conceivably use them for free. I think you can use them without getting sued.
Plain English with Derek Thompson
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
So why would you hire someone when you don't even have to have that process in your workflow? If you're making a commercial and you wanna have a song that sounds like the Rolling Stones, you could have a hundred songs that sound exactly like the Rolling Stones in an hour and your editor can start cutting to them. So I think it's gonna happen. I think there will be...
Plain English with Derek Thompson
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
Some delays because people will be afraid of the legal consequences, but that'll happen in films, podcasts, commercials. It's going to happen in all these different realms.
Plain English with Derek Thompson
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
Yeah, so it added a feature where you can upload your own music and then extend it. And that was, yeah, it was a mind-blowing experience because I uploaded just a little 12-second stinger I did for a commercial 10 years ago that I had totally forgotten about. And this is that. It turned that into a full track, and here's where it switches to the AI version.
Plain English with Derek Thompson
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
It really feels like where I was imagining taking the track. And it did little things that I had envisioned but did not put into the prompt, like a little drum machine here or, you know, a synth here. And it's just really amazing. I mean... The other thing that is really cool about this to me as a musician is I can then take this and use it as a blueprint for where I take the song.
Plain English with Derek Thompson
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
So maybe I don't use the AI audio, but I could... pull up some synths that sound exactly like this and play that part. And maybe I put my own little spin on it while I'm playing it. Or maybe I ignore this, this and this, but I do that part and that part. So it's like, it's like having, it could be like having a writing partner and you can take some of the ideas, reject the others.
Plain English with Derek Thompson
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
And I think like for a musician, that's where it gets really exciting. It feels like you could use this to kind of never get stuck on a song again. And I think all musicians have the problem of where to go next. I'm stuck here. It's 50% done. It's 60% done. And this feels like a little thing that could get you over that hump.
Plain English with Derek Thompson
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
Yeah, if I move forward with working with it, that's exactly what I'm going to do. And it's exactly how you write with another person. I mean, I was just texting with my buddy Graham yesterday, and he's an amazing guitarist. And the way we would collaborate sometimes is I would say, you know, what would... Steve Cropper do? What would George Harrison do?
Plain English with Derek Thompson
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
And, you know, he's listened to enough of the music that he gives sort of his spin on what they would do. And that's what the AI does. Yes, it's not John Lennon, but it kind of knows what John Lennon would do in this situation if he had reached this point in a song.
Plain English with Derek Thompson
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
I will say since my On The Media piece, I would say 30 to 50 musicians have reached out to me sort of very excited about the prospect of using it this way. And one was a famous electronic musician who I've listened to for a long time. And it was like really interesting to see how excited musicians were by it, but they all had this exact same, it feels different.
Plain English with Derek Thompson
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
This isn't like a new piece of technology, like a new keyboard or a new digital plugin. It's something different. And so everyone is excited by it. And I think musicians are inherently, ooh, there's a new tool that can make good music. I want it. I wanna play with it.
Plain English with Derek Thompson
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
Yeah, I think we heard it doing what it does great, which is it hears what you were doing, it hears the sound of it, and it just continues it. And it doesn't need much to see kind of what the piece is. It still feels like it grew out of the piece you wrote. And I will say that kind of one of the limitations of where it went was that you recorded that with your iPhone, I'm assuming.
Plain English with Derek Thompson
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
And it's a pretty rough mono recording. So it's not gonna go to a full orchestra because there aren't any recordings that sort of start with iPhone demo and then go to the New York Philharmonics. But if you had started with a good recording of your piece, it would have gone in a different direction. It probably would have become even more lush and, you know, well-produced.
Plain English with Derek Thompson
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
So, you know, it's limited by what you put in, but I think, like, from a musical standpoint, it took it, it made something that feels like it, but, you know, much more complex and intricate and amazing.
Plain English with Derek Thompson
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
Yeah, I think that's it exactly. Yeah, I think like an even grayer area would be what if you took that piece and then tried to learn it and you learn bits from it? You know, you probably I couldn't play that myself. And so you would probably play like a more simplified version of it. And then you might make a little tweak. Oh, it goes to an A minor here, but I want to go to the F, you know.
Plain English with Derek Thompson
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
And so then what's that? Is that Yours, it feels a lot more yours than that piece, but it's not entirely yours. And I think that that point right there is where music is going to be in five years. I think all musicians, well... Let me take that back. I think a lot of musicians are going to start using it.
Plain English with Derek Thompson
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
I think it's going to start getting baked into Pro Tools, Ableton, Logic, and it's going to be this spellchecky thing. But it's a lot different than spellcheck when it's helping you come up with a bridge or helping you come up with a melody. But I think it's going to be just in the water very soon because it's so good. And how could musicians...
Plain English with Derek Thompson
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
not use this tool that could make unbelievable music and help them make better music than they could without.
Plain English with Derek Thompson
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
Some people will hold out. A lot of people will. And I think we should as a society, but it's just like, it's there. And I think people are going to start using it. And yeah, I don't think there will be, you know, top, you know, I don't think there will be number one hits that are just purely AI generation, someone typing in a prompt and what the AI spits out.
Plain English with Derek Thompson
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
But I do think that people will use it like a writing partner and it's gonna produce amazing results. And that's the thing that's so scary is I know a lot of musicians who are like, fuck this, this is bullshit, it's theft, it's awful, I hate it. And a part of me feels that way too. But what's blowing my mind is just how good it is. And so you have to respect it at the same time that you fear it.
Plain English with Derek Thompson
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
And if I think of a 15-year-old today who is an amazing musician, who's the next Tame Impala, the next Paul McCartney, and they have this tool in their arsenal, I think this would probably make them even better and could make them produce a million times more. And I don't know, I think they'll just grow up using it. And it's going to be just a part of music very, very soon.
Plain English with Derek Thompson
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
No, nowhere even close. I mean, I think clearly there is, clearly they have sucked in basically all the music ever recorded and that's how they've created this model. Their argument is that their model just listened to music just like you or I listen to music and then create a piano piece. But I think it's entirely different. And I think you can look at the license model of the music.
Plain English with Derek Thompson
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
When you buy a piece of music, you're allowed to listen to it, but you're not allowed to put it in your commercial or your movie. You have to pay a separate license for that. And there is certainly no license when you put your piece of music on Spotify that you're granting some company to create an AI model off of it. So I just think it's pretty clear cut that they do not have the right to do this.
Plain English with Derek Thompson
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
But that's being litigated right now. I think the RIAA is suing the two big companies and trying to stop them. But I don't think it's going to stop the AI music generators from existing because honestly, I think the music labels are going to create their own or at least do some sort of partnership with the preexisting ones.
Plain English with Derek Thompson
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
I think you're exactly right. It's on the input. We can't look at the output and say, litigate every song. Oh, this sounds too much like that. And as an aside, I think that part is kind of haywire currently with real live music. I mean, without getting too deep into it, the whole Marvin Gaye blurred lines decision, I think every musician... is baffled by that and terrified of that.
Plain English with Derek Thompson
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
And for the listeners who aren't familiar, there was a Robin Thicke song produced by Pharrell that was clearly inspired by Marvin Gaye. But if you listen to it, it's not the same melody. It's not the same chord progression. It's not the same beat. There is no sampling going on. If you played the two songs together, you know, on your keyboard and drums at home, they would not be the same song.
Plain English with Derek Thompson
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
But there was a legal decision that basically said, this is too close because we heard that they were inspired by this Marvin Gaye track. And it's just so... dumb as a musician, because like, what is the blues? I mean, it's literally the same chord progression.
Plain English with Derek Thompson
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
And there are a million blues songs that are in E or in A. And, you know, if you, you know, whole genres basically are impossible to play if you're saying, oh, this is too close to that. You know, yes, if you are literally playing
Plain English with Derek Thompson
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
the exact same melody with the exact same chord progressions with the exact same lyrics yeah that's stealing but all we can do is look at the input and say do they have the right to suck in every song ever into their model is that the same as you and i listening to every song and i think it's just so clearly not it's not a person it's not listening it's
Plain English with Derek Thompson
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
I don't know what you call it, but it's like sucking it in and absorbing it and putting it onto its neural network somewhere. And that's a different thing.
Plain English with Derek Thompson
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
Totally. Yeah, I think it's about sucking in as many references as possible, knowing the appropriate references in the moment, and then just doing something that has the vibe. And yeah, there's a guessing process in music that is way different than... photography or art or writing. When you're writing an article, you're not going word by word, just what word comes next.
Plain English with Derek Thompson
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
You have an idea, you have an idea for a paragraph, a section. Music, I think, is a lot different. I think you really just, on a certain level... are guessing what the next note is.
Plain English with Derek Thompson
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
And I think there's degrees of that, free jazz takes that to an extreme, but any songwriting process, yes, you have your limitations, you have the key you're in, you have the genre of music you're playing, but ultimately you have to kind of take a leap And guess the next note, whether that's with a pen to paper or just while you're fooling around.
Plain English with Derek Thompson
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
So I think it lines up perfectly with the AI process. And that's why I think the V1 of AI music is so much better than the V1 of... the chatbots or the image generators, I do think those other mediums will catch up. But I think that to me, music is a year, three years ahead of these other ones.
Plain English with Derek Thompson
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
And so I think I'm having the existential crisis that basically everyone is going to be having in, let's say, two years.
Plain English with Derek Thompson
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
Yes, I think it's definitely going to change it if people start using it. And I will say, depending on the genre, the type of musician, so many musicians are going to say, I will never touch AI generators. And I don't know if I'm really going to incorporate this into my workflow. I'm just sort of...
Plain English with Derek Thompson
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
Exploring it more out of curiosity and just because I'm impressed with how good it is, it doesn't mean I want to use it moving forward. And again, the thing that is so... tantalizing for me is I have hundreds and hundreds of songs that are just sitting on hard drives half finished. I know there is a dozen songs on there that are really good. If AI could help me finish it,
Plain English with Derek Thompson
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
that's really appealing to me because like a song, you know, a song sitting on a hard drive from now into eternity and never being listened to again, that's worth nothing. And so if AI turns it into something and it's something different, something a little weird because the process involves AI, Yes, that's weird, but at least it's something.
Plain English with Derek Thompson
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
But I think the gray area becomes like, if that just becomes your process. And I think there is a huge difference if it's for commercial purposes. You know, if someone hires me to do, you know, what's called in the industry, a sound alike, you know, hey, we want an MGMT song for this commercial, but we don't want to pay MGMT, come up with something. I don't know.
Plain English with Derek Thompson
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
Using one of these to generate some starting points, that's really appealing. Because they'll be able to come up with something that isn't too close, but still has the right feel, and I could build off of it. So that's really tantalizing. Because to try and come up with something with the right vibe... purely on my own, would just take much, much longer.
Plain English with Derek Thompson
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
And a lot of those jobs, it's like, hey, we need something tomorrow, a fully produced track that fits this commercial. And so, yeah, it's really hard to imagine if the tools exist and they're legal to use, just not using them.
Plain English with Derek Thompson
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
Yeah, I think about that a lot. The image is a snake eating its own tail. I mean, it's like if AI is going to be in the music that we create, and then, you know, and then that will be fed back into the AI, and then, you know, will be worked back into the music that's created after that. It's just going to be a feedback loop of AI.
Plain English with Derek Thompson
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
And I don't know if it's ever going to be 100% feedback, but I think it'll grow. You know, maybe five years from now, AI is...
Plain English with Derek Thompson
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
know let's say responsible for five percent of of kind of coming up with uh new new things in the song like it's sort of the writing partner model i think that will only increase and i think it will increase at an exponential level because of this process so that really scares me because Yeah, I think humans will have less and less of a role in the writing. At the same time, yeah.
Plain English with Derek Thompson
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
I mean, maybe people use it in really creative ways and it actually creates a really new, cool product that wouldn't have happened just with human evolution. But this is where I get sort of a little gooey where I'm like, it's just not pure anymore. You know, from like the dawn of time up until... last year, music evolved by like humans listening to other humans and making music together.
Plain English with Derek Thompson
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
And it feels like now there is going to be this algorithmic element into it. And that's really scary to me. I don't know, maybe, yeah, maybe it makes better music, but there's still something icky about that to me.
Plain English with Derek Thompson
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
When did you first catch the bug? Wow. I mean, I guess it was, I think it was the summer between fifth and sixth grade, I made a Beatles mixtape and I became, I was obsessed with it. I like listened to it nonstop doing gardening work for an entire summer and then convinced my grandma to buy me a guitar. And I tried to learn every Beatles song I could.
Plain English with Derek Thompson
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
Then I was like, oh wait, the piano songs, those are my favorite. So I started learning piano. Convinced my grandma to get me a four-track recorder. And then, you know, I experimented with layering stuff. And yeah, and then, you know, it just became like my favorite thing to do and kind of still is in some ways.
Plain English with Derek Thompson
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
Well, I usually freeze because I don't know exactly how to answer the question. But I'd probably say I'm a composer for films, commercials, and podcasts. I mean, the truth of it is, like a lot of musicians, I have to do a few different things to piece together a full income. So, you know, if they pry, I'll also say that I'm a podcast producer and editor.
Plain English with Derek Thompson
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
But a lot of times I just leave it as I'm a composer, probably because I think that sounds the coolest.
Plain English with Derek Thompson
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
I saw these large language models, and I think probably a lot like you and everyone, it was like, this is cool, this seems like a promise of things to come, but it's not...
Plain English with Derek Thompson
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
mind-blowing yet it's just like really cool and then i i was like holy shit these models are going to be perfect for emulating music for you know the input of music and the output of music is perfect for the way these models work and so i was just kind of like waiting and poking around to thinking like one of these is going to come and it's going to be mind blowing.
Plain English with Derek Thompson
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
And so I, you know, kept Googling and the spring of last year, I, you know, saw one, a new one that was kind of popping up online. And, you know, I went to like the Reddit forum for it and I found this, Someone posted a track and it was basically a ripoff of Toots and the Maidles, an early reggae star from Jamaica. And I love reggae, old reggae. And I heard it, and I was like, this is music.
Plain English with Derek Thompson
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
It's not like, oh, that's cool. Like, this is good music. It has some artifacts here and there, but it's amazing.
Plain English with Derek Thompson
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
I have been hired to make a reggae song that's supposed to sound like 1969 Jamaica. I can do a pretty good job of making something. It's certainly of the same spirit of it, but it doesn't feel right. Like it was recorded on a hot summer night in 1969 in studio one, which was Lee scratch Perry's like original studio.
Plain English with Derek Thompson
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
And like, you know, with like this brother duo on, on drums and bass, like it doesn't have the same vibe. And this one, just the vibe is like, it's,
Plain English with Derek Thompson
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
good it's like really good and it's like you kind of need a time machine to to recreate something like that and then the vocal performance um you know yes there are weird parts here and there but by and large the vocal performance is virtuosic like just like him
Plain English with Derek Thompson
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
So yeah, I guess I thought first, what's a good target? What does this scene need? And yeah, what came to mind was kind of like an indie drama comedy from the 90s. And I thought of John Bryan, who's a favorite composer of mine. And so I didn't go back and listen to his catalog because I was afraid if I do that, I might do something too close to it. And I kind of just in my head was like,
Plain English with Derek Thompson
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
what's a John Bryan song sound like? And I just started playing it. So in a way, I was trying to rip off John Bryan, but I knew my memory is so bad that whatever I create right now is not going to be a direct ripoff of John Bryan. It's just gonna have a similar vibe to it.
Plain English with Derek Thompson
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
And that's a Mellotron playing the main melody, which is kind of this... It's an instrument from the 60s that I think has a kind of like toyish feel to it. So, you know, it gives it like a cute flavor to it. But I think it's kind of a bittersweet melody and it just kind of has that... you know, end of a romantic comedy feel to it.
Plain English with Derek Thompson
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
Totally. And, you know, I didn't know. Since, you know, when I was making the piece for On The Media, I kind of went back and I was like, what is this? Like, I know this is close to a John Bryan thing. And I went through his scores and I was like, oh, it's I Heart Huckabee. Like, that's definitely what it's closest to.
Plain English with Derek Thompson
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
This is what it came up with. And those are real strings. I would need to hire LA session string players to have something that good. And there's a French horn. And it's not like what I use when I use a French horn. It's a real French horn. It sounds like a real French horn player. So in a way, I just can't compete with that. I can't... With the budgets of the projects I work on, I can't hire...
Plain English with Derek Thompson
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
amazing session players in LA.
Plain English with Derek Thompson
How AI Could Change the Future of Music
Well, yeah, it produced a like within like an hour, I produced six tracks that were just unbelievable. Here's the first one that it produced.