Mikey Shulman, CEO of AI music generation startup Suno, actually thinks people don’t enjoy making music anymore. “It’s not really enjoyable to make music now,” according to him.
I have been pointing out for many years now that humans have been making music together ever since they could bang rocks together and grunt. Every single society in the history of humankind does this.
But a strange thing happened in North America in the early 1900s. People started listening to recorded music, deferring to professionals instead of making music themselves. People started to become embarrassed if they weren’t perfect, and you started hearing people say, “I can’t sing”. And then they didn’t sing.
I was at an international gathering, and people from different organizations started singing their countries traditional songs to each other. The Germans did. The Danes did. The Brits did. When it came to the Canadians, we had no idea what to do, because none of us were used to making music.
My feeling is that the decline in making music together, whether it be around a kitchen table, in a bar, or in a concert hall, is one of the reasons that people in North America especially feel isolated and lonely.
That’s why I encourage everyone to join a choir, pick up an instrument, and just make music no matter how little it sounds like what you hear on a CD or radio (or Spotify). It’s not the quality of the music that matters, it’s the action of collaborating with others to do it.
Actually, yeah, you highlight a very important point
Were effectively ceding parts of our humanities to commercialization/capitalism, and then subconsciously not allowing ourselves to participate in those things anymore, eroding our humanness
The fun part of being an artist isn’t in having made something.
It’s a mistake non-arists often make.
The fun part is the exploration and the discovery. The willing of something new into existence. The learning and experiencing.
You make for yourself first, not an audience.
These techbros are not artists. That’s why they think you should just jump to the end product.
It’s part of a more anti-intellectual movement in the United States, where the arts and humanities are frequently dismissed as “useless” because these people fail to understand that introspection, the creation of culture and the understanding of ourselves is in itself just as fundamental to human happiness and a fulfilling existence as the economy they’re so hellbent on defending.
As a tech geek and an artist (writer), I wholeheartedly agree. This is purely for the benefit of investors, not the craft.
Anyone who doesn’t enjoy music shouldn’t be making music.
And anyone who thinks that it’s impossible to enjoy making music should have nothing to do with any sort of music business. In an ideal world, anyway.
Capitalism, everyone!
It’s not really enjoyable to make music now
LOL reminds me of when american ISPs were trying to convince everyone, anyone that “we don’t provide gigabit internet across the board because americans don’t want it”
dude definitely struggled to tune an 808
Suno CEO doesn’t even know what tuning an 808 means.
I saw a react to this interview. This guy is so out of touch with any actual reality. He probably had trouble playing a g chord on his dad’s guitar in middle school, got laughed at and decided to make sure musicians would die out. Fuck this guy.
