BONUS: The value of analog creation in a digital world
This special bonus episode is the full discussion in response to a Mailbag quote about AI in music, which turned into a deeper conversation about analog creation, live music, and community.
Key takeaways
- Trist and Elaine dig into the growing presence of AI in music production and its potential to create "perfect" music. They point out that AI lacks the emotional depth, innovation, and human connection that make music truly meaningful, and encourage musicians to continue creating, as human artistry and imperfection are irreplaceable.
- Elaine and Trist explore the unique experience of live music, emphasizing its ability to foster community and emotional connection. They discuss how live performances, whether by orchestras, street musicians, or bands, offer a sense of shared humanity that cannot be replicated by digital or AI-generated music
- This mailbag segment delves into the significance of individual interpretation in music, particularly in classical and piano performances. Trist and Elaine compare the nuances of human interpretation to the uniformity of AI-generated music, underscoring the value of personal craftsmanship and the emotional resonance it brings to the art form
About us
Trist Curless is a Los Angeles-based vocalist, educator, and sound engineer. As a performer, Trist has toured worldwide as a co-founder of the pop-jazz vocal group m-pact and a 10 year member of the Grammy-award winning The Manhattan Transfer. In addition to these two vocal powerhouse groups, he’s also performed with Take 6, Bobby McFerrin, New York Voices, Vox Audio, Naturally 7, and The Swingle Singers. His latest venture, The LHR Project, is a new vocal group collective celebrating legendary jazz vocal group Lambert, Hendricks, and Ross.
As an audio engineer, Trist has toured nationally with several vocal groups and bands in a large variety of venues, working for Grammy award winners Pentatonix and Take 6, as well as prominent a cappella vocal groups Straight No Chaser, VoicePlay, and Accent.
Elaine Chao, M.Ed is a San Francisco Bay Area-based vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, vocal percussionist, and songwriter whose career spans a cappella, contemporary worship, and classical music. She has leveraged her training in classical and choral music over the course of her contemporary performance, including in orchestras for musical theatre and in sacred spaces. In addition to music, she also is a martial artist and published author. She currently leads a product management team at a major software company dedicated to creative expression. All statements in this podcast are her own and do not reflect the opinions of her employer.
Transcript
Elaine: Hi everyone.
Speaker:Elaine: Welcome to this extra special
Speaker:Elaine: bonus episode of The Musician's
Speaker:Elaine: Loupe.
Speaker:Elaine: If you listened to our last episode, you'll know that the
Speaker:Elaine: mailbag was actually a question and conversation about AI in
Speaker:Elaine: music and some of the controversy that most people
Speaker:Elaine: feel about this.
Speaker:Elaine: And that morphed into a
Speaker:Elaine: conversation about our
Speaker:Elaine: relationship with technology and
Speaker:Elaine: our relationship with making
Speaker:Elaine: things in the context of mass
Speaker:Elaine: manufacturing.
Speaker:Elaine: This actually turned into a longer conversation about our
Speaker:Elaine: relationship with live music.
Speaker:Elaine: And we had such a great conversation that we wanted to
Speaker:Elaine: share the entire thing with you.
Speaker:Elaine: So please enjoy this extra
Speaker:Elaine: special bonus episode with our
Speaker:Elaine: full conversation.
Speaker:Elaine: Thanks for joining us and we will see you next week.
Speaker:Elaine: Awesome.
Speaker:Elaine: So this week's mailbag is from Threads.
Speaker:Elaine: It's from an account called
Speaker:Elaine: @msinstrumental, M-S
Speaker:Elaine: instrumental from December of
Speaker:Elaine: 2025.
Speaker:Elaine: And it says: "Hi musicians, please don't let the rise of AI
Speaker:Elaine: usage in music discourage you from singing, rapping,
Speaker:Elaine: songwriting, producing, practicing, performing,
Speaker:Elaine: creating, experimenting, or just trying in general.
Speaker:Elaine: FYI, this isn't an anti AI post.
Speaker:Elaine: I'm pro-technology and pro-innovation.
Speaker:Elaine: Just saying if you genuinely
Speaker:Elaine: enjoy making music, please keep
Speaker:Elaine: making it.
Speaker:Elaine: Immerse yourself in discovery
Speaker:Elaine: and into the process of
Speaker:Elaine: creation.
Speaker:Elaine: There are still so many people who'd enjoy hearing or
Speaker:Elaine: experiencing your art.
Speaker:Elaine: And there's
Speaker:Trist: Hm.
Speaker:Elaine: a couple of emoji afterwards.
Speaker:Elaine: We haven't talked as much about the rise of AI, even though
Speaker:Elaine: everyone is talking about it right now and the impact of AI
Speaker:Elaine: in the music industry.
Speaker:Elaine: I'd love to hear a little bit of
Speaker:Elaine: your thoughts, especially when
Speaker:Elaine: it comes in response to this
Speaker:Elaine: particular person's
Speaker:Elaine: encouragement to continue to
Speaker:Elaine: make music, even in more analog
Speaker:Elaine: ways, or perhaps especially in
Speaker:Elaine: analog ways.
Speaker:Trist: I'm in agreement with that particular Thread.
Speaker:Trist: And I think it's a bit different and a little too simplistic, but
Speaker:Trist: I'll use it anyway.
Speaker:Trist: Things that I've often heard in these conversations, at some
Speaker:Trist: point the drum machine was going to ruin music.
Speaker:Trist: At some point, multitrack
Speaker:Trist: recording was going to ruin
Speaker:Trist: music.
Speaker:Trist: At some point, just the Beatles'
Speaker:Trist: existence was going to ruin
Speaker:Trist: music.
Speaker:Trist: So we go through history and there's always the "this is
Speaker:Trist: going to ruin music."
Speaker:Trist: I'm definitely a glass half full guy, but the optimist in me
Speaker:Trist: believes in the humans maybe less and less every day, but I
Speaker:Trist: still do believe in them.
Speaker:Trist: And that the originality that comes from us, the algorithms
Speaker:Trist: and the AI stuff pulls from stuff that exists already,
Speaker:Trist: doesn't usually create, although I'm sure that's coming.
Speaker:Trist: It doesn't create necessarily in
Speaker:Trist: a way that humans would and do
Speaker:Trist: odd things that maybe even other
Speaker:Trist: humans wouldn't do, let alone a
Speaker:Trist: program.
Speaker:Trist: So I guess that's part of my hope.
Speaker:Trist: and again, much like, "Oh no, the drum machine is going to
Speaker:Trist: be-" Well, they didn't put drummers out of business.
Speaker:Trist: They became an important part of a lot of different music.
Speaker:Trist: But, you just had to shift and
Speaker:Trist: there's been some great things
Speaker:Trist: that have happened because of
Speaker:Trist: them.
Speaker:Trist: So I guess that's just my only
Speaker:Trist: hope is that really creative
Speaker:Trist: people can use like they've
Speaker:Trist: always used.
Speaker:Trist: Same with synthesizers.
Speaker:Trist: Oh my goodness, "synthesizers are going to ruin music."
Speaker:Trist: So yeah, I guess I'm in agreement.
Speaker:Trist: I get that way too.
Speaker:Trist: Even just.
Speaker:Trist: "Why write a song when this other thing exists that's
Speaker:Trist: writing all these great songs, you don't need any more from me,
Speaker:Trist: or why do your own whatever when this other stuff is so great?"
Speaker:Trist: And so it's easy to get bogged down in that.
Speaker:Trist: And now it's "Well, why try to work my tail off to create this
Speaker:Trist: thing when some people can just feed a couple things into some
Speaker:Trist: AI and it'll spit out something better than I could ever do?"
Speaker:Trist: That's just not true.
Speaker:Trist: It doesn't have your heart.
Speaker:Trist: It doesn't have your innovation,
Speaker:Trist: your thoughts, your feelings,
Speaker:Trist: that somebody needs or wants to
Speaker:Trist: hear.
Speaker:Trist: So I think that hopefully should forever be a thing that is
Speaker:Trist: needed, humans communicating with others through art.
Speaker:Elaine: Yeah, I love that you put it that way because I think I
Speaker:Elaine: resonate with that in the way that I think about a
Speaker:Elaine: relationship with technology.
Speaker:Elaine: And there are two different examples that I have in mind.
Speaker:Elaine: One of them is social media and I see a pendulum swing that is
Speaker:Elaine: happening in culture.
Speaker:Elaine: Twenty years ago, social media was brand brand new.
Speaker:Elaine: It had a lot of opportunities for us to connect with people.
Speaker:Elaine: But more and more today, I see a
Speaker:Elaine: generation of people just
Speaker:Elaine: stepping away from social media
Speaker:Elaine: and prioritizing in-person
Speaker:Elaine: relationship and in-person
Speaker:Elaine: conversation, really biasing
Speaker:Elaine: towards stepping away from this
Speaker:Elaine: digital connectedness into an
Speaker:Elaine: in-person connectedness.
Speaker:Elaine: And I see that we value that more because the digital
Speaker:Elaine: connectedness is so cheap.
Speaker:Elaine: And here's another example.
Speaker:Elaine: Some people may know this, but I'm a fiber crafter.
Speaker:Elaine: And so that means that I knit and crochet.
Speaker:Elaine: So in a world of mass manufacturing where someone can
Speaker:Elaine: get a sweater just off the rack for twenty bucks.
Speaker:Elaine: Now I can go out and buy something and I can give it to a
Speaker:Elaine: friend, but if I knit something for them and give it to them, it
Speaker:Elaine: inherently has more value.
Speaker:Elaine: It has more value because I have created this thing.
Speaker:Elaine: I've put in the time.
Speaker:Elaine: I've brought my own craftsmanship.
Speaker:Elaine: And so I think that there is an
Speaker:Elaine: opportunity for us to think
Speaker:Elaine: about in a world where digital
Speaker:Elaine: tools are making it so much
Speaker:Elaine: easier and more accessible, how
Speaker:Elaine: much more are we going to value
Speaker:Elaine: the actual skills that go into
Speaker:Elaine: it?
Speaker:Elaine: And so I really go back to the
Speaker:Elaine: whole mass manufacturing thing
Speaker:Elaine: of clothing.
Speaker:Elaine: And I just think about how much joy I bring whenever I make a
Speaker:Elaine: baby item for a friend.
Speaker:Elaine: And they are absolutely blown
Speaker:Elaine: away when they receive something
Speaker:Elaine: that is handcrafted, whether
Speaker:Elaine: it's a quilt or it's a sweater
Speaker:Elaine: or it's a blanket or something
Speaker:Elaine: like that.
Speaker:Elaine: It is something that is
Speaker:Elaine: incredibly meaningful for them,
Speaker:Elaine: and I think reinforces our
Speaker:Elaine: relationship in a way that
Speaker:Elaine: buying something off the rack
Speaker:Elaine: would not, no matter how much I
Speaker:Elaine: spent.
Speaker:Trist: Absolutely.
Speaker:Elaine: One other thing that I'm
Speaker:Elaine: thinking about right now is the
Speaker:Elaine: relationship that we have to
Speaker:Elaine: live music as opposed to
Speaker:Elaine: recorded music.
Speaker:Elaine: And certainly you and I have talked a bit about the
Speaker:Elaine: experience of listening to recorded music together.
Speaker:Elaine: Like we both have experiences listening to music with other
Speaker:Elaine: people as a social thing.
Speaker:Elaine: And live music also fits into that social experience.
Speaker:Trist: Well, caveat being I live in Los Angeles, so it's very easy for
Speaker:Trist: me to say, oh, go experience live music as much as possible.
Speaker:Trist: There's more here than I could ever even get to.
Speaker:Trist: But no matter where you are.
Speaker:Trist: Somehow you have the ability at some point.
Speaker:Trist: Maybe it's not at the interval
Speaker:Trist: that I tend to have access to,
Speaker:Trist: but at some interval, wherever
Speaker:Trist: you are, you have some kind of
Speaker:Trist: access to some kind of live
Speaker:Trist: music that you can go
Speaker:Trist: experience.
Speaker:Trist: I've noticed I've really tried to focus on doing that.
Speaker:Trist: I try to go to one or two performances from the LA Phil.
Speaker:Trist: The Walt Disney concert hall is just an acoustic marvel.
Speaker:Trist: And the LA Phil surprise,
Speaker:Trist: surprise has amazing musicians
Speaker:Trist: in it.
Speaker:Trist: City of twelve million people is
Speaker:Trist: bound to have a pretty good
Speaker:Trist: orchestra.
Speaker:Trist: So hearing these great works of music in this beautiful space
Speaker:Trist: and just hearing it amazingly well and getting to experience
Speaker:Trist: it live and see those, 60 to 100 humans doing this together and
Speaker:Trist: creating this one sound is just really, really moving.
Speaker:Trist: Or the same doing that at the Hollywood Bowl or hearing any
Speaker:Trist: other kind of band or other music at the Hollywood Bowl, or
Speaker:Trist: going to opera or going to any other live theater, jazz
Speaker:Trist: concerts, rock concerts, whatever the music or whatever
Speaker:Trist: the thing is that you're doing.
Speaker:Trist: I find I'm probably doing that a little more lately, probably in
Speaker:Trist: relation to how much recorded music there is, as we've talked
Speaker:Trist: about, one of the reasons you've chosen me to do this with you is
Speaker:Trist: I have so much recorded music, and it's kind of my thing.
Speaker:Trist: And yet I will even occasionally
Speaker:Trist: kind of remind myself to do just
Speaker:Trist: more listening.
Speaker:Trist: I do still love the listening like crazy, but I think maybe in
Speaker:Trist: response to that, what you're talking about, maybe I'm
Speaker:Trist: subconsciously trying to make sure I get in the live
Speaker:Trist: experiences, a) because I'm in a city where I can experience them
Speaker:Trist: and it would be a shame not to.
Speaker:Trist: But also, there's just so much coming out.
Speaker:Trist: And I think as we've talked about before, "There's just no
Speaker:Trist: good music these days."
Speaker:Trist: It's like, well, no, that's definitely a lie.
Speaker:Trist: The problem is there's so much music, it's just harder to sort
Speaker:Trist: through it all, to find the thing that speaks to you.
Speaker:Trist: And all the time, people are telling me about stuff that's
Speaker:Trist: just of the utmost importance and quality, and I just didn't
Speaker:Trist: hear about it other than a recommendation, which also is a
Speaker:Trist: part of our podcast's existence.
Speaker:Trist: If we can have these handful of songs enter your life and add
Speaker:Trist: something, we love that.
Speaker:Elaine: I also wonder if there is a relationship to perfection that
Speaker:Elaine: we think about.
Speaker:Elaine: So grappling with our sense of perfection, one of the things
Speaker:Elaine: about AI music is that it's almost always perfect.
Speaker:Elaine: And you're thinking about like the generation.
Speaker:Elaine: Of course, again, we're growing
Speaker:Elaine: out of it, but we're heading
Speaker:Elaine: into a world where the quality
Speaker:Elaine: of what comes out is always
Speaker:Elaine: identical.
Speaker:Elaine: It's also the same thing.
Speaker:Elaine: You think about orchestral patches, for instance.
Speaker:Elaine: They're just getting better and
Speaker:Elaine: better year over year, and they
Speaker:Elaine: sound more and more like an
Speaker:Elaine: orchestra.
Speaker:Elaine: But if you think about major
Speaker:Elaine: motion pictures, they're
Speaker:Elaine: recording with orchestras,
Speaker:Elaine: they're not recording with
Speaker:Elaine: patches.
Speaker:Elaine: If you're thinking about the
Speaker:Elaine: choral experience, we both have
Speaker:Elaine: friends who sing in the LA
Speaker:Elaine: Master Chorale, and they are
Speaker:Elaine: frequently recording for film
Speaker:Elaine: scores.
Speaker:Elaine: But I also think about our relationship, like you said,
Speaker:Elaine: with orchestras and with this more traditional sound that
Speaker:Elaine: we're used to.
Speaker:Elaine: And there is something about Imperfection.
Speaker:Elaine: There's something about the interpretation of music that is
Speaker:Elaine: much more on feel.
Speaker:Elaine: So whether it is going slightly out of time or it's a ritard in
Speaker:Elaine: an area, a pregnant pause, something that really hits us in
Speaker:Elaine: a very specific emotion.
Speaker:Elaine: That's the nuance, I think that
Speaker:Elaine: is lost in a lot of this
Speaker:Elaine: digitized music.
Speaker:Elaine: And so we seek for these things that are potentially imperfect.
Speaker:Elaine: And when they are perfect from imperfect humans, you're like,
Speaker:Elaine: whoa, that is amazing.
Speaker:Trist: Right.
Speaker:Elaine: I also think, though, about our relationship with orchestras in
Speaker:Elaine: relationship to recorded music.
Speaker:Elaine: And I'm thinking specifically
Speaker:Elaine: now about the relationship that
Speaker:Elaine: people have with going to watch
Speaker:Elaine: a film where there's an
Speaker:Elaine: orchestra actually playing the
Speaker:Elaine: score of
Speaker:Trist: Love that.
Speaker:Elaine: the actual. Yeah. And I think about how exciting that is to
Speaker:Elaine: see that live because there's not only the visual of the
Speaker:Elaine: movie, but there's also the visual of the orchestra and just
Speaker:Elaine: thinking about, wow, that sound is coming from this instrument
Speaker:Elaine: is coming from this person.
Speaker:Trist: I've done that a few times here
Speaker:Trist: at the Hollywood Bowl with the
Speaker:Trist: LA Phil or the Hollywood
Speaker:Trist: Orchestra.
Speaker:Trist: And as odd as it sounds, it's a little too good.
Speaker:Trist: It's a little too good.
Speaker:Trist: Seriously, I'm just like, most
Speaker:Trist: of the time I'm so into the
Speaker:Trist: movie and a great musical thing
Speaker:Trist: happens.
Speaker:Trist: I'm just into the movie.
Speaker:Trist: And just periodically I have to remind myself, oh, that's coming
Speaker:Trist: from those people right there.
Speaker:Trist: Not like the movie score or soundtrack from the, they have
Speaker:Trist: separate tracks that have all the sound effects and then have
Speaker:Trist: the regular audio and then have the dialogue and all that.
Speaker:Trist: And then they take out all the
Speaker:Trist: music and then they play it
Speaker:Trist: live.
Speaker:Trist: But it's so well done and so well mixed.
Speaker:Trist: And the orchestra is so in time.
Speaker:Trist: I've heard two or three movies like that.
Speaker:Trist: I've gone to, and I can't think of a single time where the
Speaker:Trist: reason I noticed the orchestra was because something sounded
Speaker:Trist: weird or off
Speaker:Elaine: Oh,
Speaker:Trist: or
Speaker:Elaine: yeah.
Speaker:Trist: anything.
Speaker:Elaine: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker:Trist: It's like so perfect.
Speaker:Trist: It's so.
Speaker:Trist: Yeah, it's
Speaker:Elaine: But it's an experience.
Speaker:Trist: so great,
Speaker:Elaine: It's a
Speaker:Trist: I
Speaker:Elaine: live
Speaker:Trist: love
Speaker:Elaine: experience,
Speaker:Trist: it. It's great.
Speaker:Trist: Yeah.
Speaker:Elaine: right?
Speaker:Trist: It's great.
Speaker:Elaine: And I think that that's
Speaker:Elaine: something that is really
Speaker:Elaine: precious.
Speaker:Elaine: And for us to think about in the AI world, to think about how we
Speaker:Elaine: value music and how we value live performance and how we
Speaker:Elaine: value the human in the loop.
Speaker:Elaine: That it's not just AI all the
Speaker:Elaine: way down, that we still have
Speaker:Elaine: humans making music on street
Speaker:Elaine: corners, in transit stops, all
Speaker:Elaine: sorts of places where people
Speaker:Elaine: congregate.
Speaker:Elaine: Because this is community, because that's what the fabric
Speaker:Elaine: of an environment is.
Speaker:Elaine: It includes music and it includes people making music.
Speaker:Trist: Something you reminded me of is the last visit to the LA Phil.
Speaker:Trist: So the conductor for the last several years that I've lived
Speaker:Trist: here, Gustavo Dudamel, is moving to New York.
Speaker:Trist: And so I was accustomed to
Speaker:Trist: hearing the orchestra under his
Speaker:Trist: direction.
Speaker:Trist: And because I don't have as much
Speaker:Trist: direct experience in working
Speaker:Trist: with orchestras, I started
Speaker:Trist: wondering how much influence a
Speaker:Trist: particular conductor has because
Speaker:Trist: there was a different conductor
Speaker:Trist: and this particular piece of
Speaker:Trist: music that I loved, I'm like,
Speaker:Trist: hm, would that have been the
Speaker:Trist: same?
Speaker:Trist: Would that have been the same if it was Dudamel tonight instead
Speaker:Trist: of the other conductor?
Speaker:Trist: And I have no idea.
Speaker:Trist: Occasionally, again, working in music stores and hearing things
Speaker:Trist: about like, oh, no, no, no, Beethoven's 5th, you want the
Speaker:Trist: Deutsche Grammophon of the Chicago with Schulte.
Speaker:Trist: Like, okay, you want this
Speaker:Trist: symphony orchestra on these
Speaker:Trist: years, on this label with this
Speaker:Trist: conductor.
Speaker:Trist: That's the only way you can
Speaker:Trist: listen to this Brahms piece or
Speaker:Trist: whatever.
Speaker:Trist: Everyone has their favorites.
Speaker:Trist: So I think that's fascinating.
Speaker:Trist: That's a bit of a tangent, but
Speaker:Trist: similar in terms of what you're
Speaker:Trist: talking about, about the human
Speaker:Trist: experience doing that, how
Speaker:Trist: that's different.
Speaker:Trist: So even feeding that music into great samples, and now we've
Speaker:Trist: gotten to where you can hear full orchestral sounds and not
Speaker:Trist: really be able to tell in a recording if they're actual
Speaker:Trist: humans playing them or not.
Speaker:Trist: They're getting so good.
Speaker:Trist: But I think again, that's the other element.
Speaker:Trist: Oh no, I can tell it was this
Speaker:Trist: conductor because of whatever
Speaker:Trist: the people that really know, oh,
Speaker:Trist: the tempos were this or they
Speaker:Trist: always do the the endings like
Speaker:Trist: this, Their phrases do this or
Speaker:Trist: whatever.
Speaker:Trist: There's those little human
Speaker:Trist: element, even in that kind of
Speaker:Trist: thing, that can feels like it
Speaker:Trist: could be easily replicated by a
Speaker:Trist: computer.
Speaker:Elaine: My piano teacher used to make me listen to a couple of different
Speaker:Elaine: recordings of the songs that I was doing to help me with my
Speaker:Elaine: interpretation, and that was a big part of it, was, how do you
Speaker:Elaine: interpret the notes on the page?
Speaker:Elaine: And especially for piano, where it does vary quite a bit because
Speaker:Elaine: it's just, you.
Speaker:Elaine: There's no conductor, right?
Speaker:Trist: Mhm.
Speaker:Elaine: There's a lot in there.
Speaker:Elaine: There's a lot of latitude.
Speaker:Elaine: And that interpretation is a big
Speaker:Elaine: part of what makes the human in
Speaker:Elaine: the piece.
