Oh the Possibilities
I’ve wanted to write songs for many years, but being limited in time and energy and having to work to support my family, I made hard choices about what would and would not get my efforts. Instruments and song writing lost to other things to the chagrin of my artist’s soul. Today, AI has met a great need in my life when no one else would help.
Back in the day, I studied privately with a gifted painter for several years and thought to pursue that. I also acted in a traveling skit troupe, writing our own material. My friends and I were doing what I now realize was street comedy. We were not unlike other burgeoning comics, who stayed with it and became famous. We didn’t know each other of course, but my friends and I chose to “grow up” and they didn’t. Whose laughing now? The love of it all never left.
40 years later, with two masters in Biblical Studies, a PhD in Theology, a teaching ministry (Biblical Literacy Ministries), a blog (Biblical Literacy @drandrewsargent.com… you are here X), and an assistant pastorship at a small struggling church… the desire never left.
Seeking Help and Getting It Only from AI
I’ve approached musical friends and sought partnership in song writing, but they had no interest. Amused smiles, yes… and flattering condescension in spades, Isn’t it so cute… the Scholar wants to write songs. Didn’t I know that such majesty was the purview of “real” artists?
Imagine my delight after many years and rebuffs to discover that I no longer needed to set my passionate desire at the whimsical feet of those gatekeepers. I could write my songs, envision the music and I could learn to use AI systems to generate the performance. I could use them as demos to get buy-in from those who might yet help me realize this dream.
One of my friends, however, said that the better my songs were, the more he would hate them. Some have shown interest and may yet help, but many are reluctant about the role of AI in the musical composition. It offends them.
AI is Threatening to Many Artists
I do get it. AI is scary. The kind of computing power that these systems can generate is terrifying for any freedom loving soul who knows how badly bad men and women want to gain power over everyone else. But there are also grand, life-breathing, soul-lifting benefits for the general population in those same tools. The risk of the former is present in every reach for the latter from longbow to bullet to nuclear power.
Many singers and musicians (not all, of course) have an almost Guru like conviction about their own performances. They are the beautiful ones, the talented ones, the special ones, and in Christian circles many fancy themselves the more spiritual ones whose melodious efforts usher others into the very presence of the divine. They do work hard, I’m sure, at creating the songs and the music, and anguish, no doubt, over every note, every breath, pause, lift, hold. I get it!
How Dare I!
How dare AI come in and empower regular clods “to push a few buttons” (Egad! Is that what they think is involved in this? Not for me that’s for sure.) and imitate… indeed, steal!!!! from those who have done the real heavy lifting in creating a global catalogue of music and performance from which AI learns. It’s a scandal… an outrage. I get it! Given the real nature of the music industry, it’s also more than a little hypocritical, but I do get the bother. (More on that another day.)
If I’d invested so much time and energy learning a skill that some “stupid” machine could then imitate, faster, cheaper, and with far less drama than I’m accustomed to being allowed to foment because I’m just soooo special, I’d be raw about it too.
AI May Not, But I Do Have a Soul
But let’s suppose, just for the sake of supposing, that, while AI does not have a soul, I DO have a soul, and the songs are mine to the letter. And let’s suppose… just going crazy here… that that soul has songs to sing and some deep wells dug with arduous labors from which to draw them out. And let’s suppose that that soul came in a body whose vocal chords wouldn’t comply with desire, whose life experiences pressed toward other achievements. Should such a one lay down and die to that desire just to make other artists feel better about themselves… more secure in their specialness?
Should the crippled be denied mechanical assistance just because they need help to do what others can do “naturally”? And more to the point, what of my great uncle’s speech pipe that allowed him to continue talking when cancer robbed him of vocal chords? The words were his. The thoughts were his thoughts. Should he be made to be silent because that voice was unnatural… and, frankly, off-putting?
Like my uncle, I have things to say and think I can say them well. You will have to make personal judgements on that score.
What I Really Want
I want to give the church biblically rich songs to sing. And I want them to have theological depth undergirding them. I want songs that are more than melodic musings about how good God makes me feel about myself.
There are some wonderful songs out there… (“So Will I (100 Billion Times) from Joel Houston, Benjamin Hastings, Michael Fatkin.1 I’m wild for it.) but there is also a definite lean toward sentimental and away from truly biblical. At the same time, the profound theological-ness of the great hymns has been largely lost. Indeed, we rarely sing laments anymore… (“Trust in You,” sung by Lauren Daigle written by Daigle, Michael Farren, and Paul Mabury2 is an exception)… or straight up Bible songs (“The Blessing,” by Kari Jobe, Cody Carnes, Chris Brown and Steven Furtick also an recent exception).3
I just want to present my songs and have people listen to them and sing them. It is hard to describe the feeling of having your own soul sung back at you with skill that you only wished you had after so many years of wanting and not getting.
She Gets Me!
The lyrics of Anna Nalick’s “Breathe (2 AM)” strikes a chord here, “2 AM and I’m still awake, writing a song. If I get it all down on paper, it’s no longer inside of me, threatening the life it belongs to.4” She goes on powerfully, “And I feel like I’m naked in front of the crowd, ’Cause these words are my diary, screaming out loud.”
I want what I’ve always wanted… to do my part on a team that produces solid music for congregational singing and for the individual edification of believers. I want real musicians and singers to partner with me. I want to help others who find themselves in the same situation that I’m in.
AI has been a last-ditch effort to give that desire its head so it could stop burning a hole in my heart. It is the grand finale of a life of teaching and being told constantly to put it all on a lower shelf. These songs are that shelf.
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GfVd5x9W1Xc&list=RDGfVd5x9W1Xc&start_radio=1 ↩︎
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qv-SXz_exKE&list=RDqv-SXz_exKE&start_radio=1 ↩︎
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZ55mDL7dA0&list=RDuZ55mDL7dA0&start_radio=1 ↩︎
- Anna Nalick “Breathe (2 AM)” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcvXr-9XtgA. Learn more at Anna Nalick’s official YouTube channel ↩︎