De-Signed Art
An observation I’ve made, albeit somewhat retrospectively, is that younger musicians have a tendency to see the essence of music suffused solely in recordings. They may not fully appreciate the fact that a musician was performing on them, and that there were other layers that are not evident in a one-bar or one-note sample.
Hip-hop artists who consort with jazz musicians are looking for emotion or feeling from the musician that they hear on a record. Hip-hop is about beats and production, not rhythms, chords, and scales that the musicians play.
But if we only consume media and not participate in it, then we are more apt to see it as something delivered to us, like prepackaged food at a supermarket. Sadly, many of the things we take for granted in free culture are not even duly commodified, and thus are relegated to free samples—like the free samples offered to us while grocery shopping.
One may need to make a concerted effort to see this happening, as freedom may be conflated with convenience: we are all free to make the world convenient for us to our selfish needs. We are all partners in crime. Ask yourself to what degree there is a sentient being behind this place or thing that may be affected by my consumption of it. If I use it anonymously and without attribution, how can I give it due reverence?
Which brings up the point of whether empathy is a prerequisite for attribution. Under copyright law, both are unnecessary with proper licensing or proof of fair use. In the Creative Commons, attribution can sometimes be its only legal condition. But attribution is not empathy. Do we need reverence or empathy? If we believe that we don’t, then how do we respond as humans? Should musicians simply accept their disenfranchisement for the sake of progress?
9/2/2010
***
[9/2/2024: When we generate music with AI we should ask ourselves, “Who are the musicians who are actually performing, and are they actual writers, as opposed to musicians-for-hire?” These things haven’t been fully considered. The other aspect has to do with influence: if I like the guitar playing in an AI-generated song, who am I emulating? The era of the musical hero may be over. You might be a fan of an AI artist, and would like to make music like them, but how could you do that with AI? (Prompt: Make an album of songs like _________.”) That would be AI emulating AI.]
[9/2/2026: Before the Renaissance, paintings were signed in the name of the studio. But that only meant that art was created as a collective effort; the John Doe artisans were important in that the paintings might have taken too long to make if the primary artist had done the more tedious aspects of it beyond the figuration.. It was a pseudonymous creativity. But once artists were recognized for their own work and could sign their name, there was no going back. In music, the artisans are the works-for-hire or players who aren’t named writers. In print publishing, who played guitar wasn’t on the lead sheet. The record company has the copyright in the master recording, and they control the IP and the “printing press”, and its mechanical reproduction. It’s still possible that AI music companies like Suno could be shut down if they continue to lose in court. But there is already so much generated work in the wild. Genies never get back in the bottle. It’s up to the user to give attribution, even as a “Doe”.]
Comments