Crazy Wisdom
Episode #532: From Pythagoras to Plugins: Why We Still Need Human Musicians
- Future Proof Music School
- generative AI
- music education
- Ableton Live
- digital audio workstation
- music production
- voice tutor chatbot
- Cadence
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Timestamps
- 00:00Future Proofing Musicians in a Changing Landscape
- 03:07The Role of AI in Music Education
- 05:36Generative AI: A Tool for Musicians?
- 08:36The Evolution of Music Creation and Technology
- 11:30The Impact of Recording Technology on Music
- 14:31The Fragmentation of Culture and Music
- 17:19Exploring Music History and Theory
- 20:13The Relationship Between Music and Memory
- 23:07The Future of Music Creation and AI
- 26:17The Importance of Live Music Experiences
- 28:49Navigating the New Music Landscape
- 31:47The Role of AI in Finding New Music
- 34:48The Creative Process in Music Production
- 37:33The Future of Music Theory and Composition
- 40:10The Search for Unique Artistic Voices
- 43:18The Intersection of Music and Technology
- 46:10Cultural Shifts in the Music Industry
- 49:09Finding Quality in a Sea of Content
Key Insights
- Future-proofing musicians means teaching evergreen techniques while adapting to AI realities. John von Seggern founded Future Proof Music School to address both sides of music education in the AI era. Students learn timeless production skills that won't become obsolete as technology evolves, while simultaneously exploring meaningful creative goals in a world where generative AI exists. The school uses AI on the education side to help students learn, but students themselves aren't particularly interested in using generative AI for actual music creation, preferring to maintain their creative fingerprint on their work.
- The 12-note Western music system emerged from mathematical relationships discovered by Pythagoras and enabled collaborative music-making. Pythagoras demonstrated that pitch relates to vibrating string lengths, establishing mathematical ratios for musical intervals. This system allowed Western classical music to flourish because it could be notated and taught consistently, enabling large groups to play together. However, the piano is never perfectly in tune due to necessary compromises in the tuning system. By the 1920s, composers had explored most harmonic possibilities within this framework, leading to new directions in musical innovation.
- Recording technology fundamentally transformed music by making the studio itself the primary instrument. The invention of audio recording in the early-to-mid 20th century shifted music from purely instrumental composition to sound-based creation. This enabled entirely new genres like electronic dance music and hip-hop, which couldn't exist without technologies like synthesizers and samplers. Modern digital audio workstations like Ableton Live allow producers to have unlimited tracks and manipulate sounds in infinite ways, making any imaginable sound possible and moving innovation from hardware to software.
- Generative AI will likely replace generic music production but not visionary artists. John distinguishes between functional music (background music for films, work, or bars) and music where audiences deeply connect with the artist's vision. AI excels at generating functional music cheaply, which will benefit indie filmmakers and similar creators. However, artists with strong creative visions who audiences follow and identify with won't be replaced. The creative fingerprint and personal statement of important artists will remain valuable regardless of the tools they use, just as DJs created art through curation rather than original production.
- Copyright restrictions are limiting generative music AI's quality compared to other AI domains. Unlike books and visual art, recorded music copyrights are concentrated among a few companies that defend them aggressively. This prevents AI music models from training on the best music in each genre, resulting in lower-quality outputs. Some developers claim their private models trained on copyrighted music sound better than commercial offerings, but legal constraints prevent widespread access. This situation differs significantly from other creative domains where training data is more accessible.
- Modern music production involves complex technical skills like sidechain compression and multi-track mixing. Today's electronic music producers work with potentially hundreds of tracks, each with sophisticated processing. Techniques like sidechain compression allow certain elements (like kick drums) to dynamically reduce the volume of other elements (like bass), ensuring clarity in the final mix. Future Proof Music School teaches students these complex production techniques, with some aspiring producers creating incredibly detailed compositions with intricate effects chains and interdependent track relationships.
- Culture is fragmenting into micro-trends, making discovery rather than creation the primary challenge. John observes that while the era of mass media created mega-stars like The Beatles and Elvis, today's landscape features both enormous stars (like Taylor Swift) and an extremely long tail of creators making niche content. AI will make it easier for more people to create quality content, particularly in fields like independent filmmaking, but the real problem is discovery. Current algorithmic recommendations don't effectively surface hidden gems, suggesting a future where personal AI agents might better curate content based on individual preferences rather than platform-driven engagement metrics.
Episode transcript
Welcome to the Crazy Wisdom Podcast. This podcast is for you. If you have an insane drive to find the truth of things, it's not the good answers that we seek, but the good questions. I interview a range of different guests from many different fields, all with the intention to uncover the simple truths that are hidden in plain sight. Most people don't want to go there. I go there, my guests go there, and you benefit. Please let me know if you enjoy these episodes and as always, subscribe on itunes, Spotify or wherever you listen to the podcasts. Welcome to the Crazy Wisdom Podcast. I've got John von Sageren here and he is the founder of Future Proof Music School. Welcome to the show.
Hi Stuart, thanks for having me today. I'm looking forward to getting into the conversation.
So how do we. How. I mean, I love the name Future Proof in general, but how do we Future Proof. What's the relationship between Future Proof and music Music? How do you Future Proof music?
That's a good question. Well, we're not. You can't Future Proof music, but you can Future Proof the musician and their skill set. Hopefully that's the aim. And there's really two sides of it because on the one hand, from the student perspective, you want to learn techniques that will be evergreen and are not going to just get out of date as technology moves on. At the same time, Future Proof also means trying to find what are the what are meaningful goals for creative artists in today's world. Given the existence of generative AI,
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