A creative daydream
For me, being creative right now feels like an absolute fucking daydream.
There is so much meaningful, useful, interesting, and enjoyable stuff we can make with AI. It is so much fun to have an idea, give it some direction, and explore what it could become.
One ongoing experiment starts with the music I love. I'm collecting favorites on Spotify as a reference and working out which sounds I'm drawn to. Then I take those descriptions into Suno, make something, listen, and tweak it.
Warm electric piano, clean guitar, and a build into a heavier beat keep showing up in the descriptions of tracks I've liked. I'm keeping versions separate and describing the groove, instruments, texture, build, and ending for each direction. With Suno V6, I turn Instrumental on, exclude vocals, listen, and change one choice at a time. I save the wording that works.
This has been one of the most creative experiments I've ever done.
It gets even more interesting when I pair it with other media. I have a podcast with my brother, and building the introduction has become its own creative project: making the music, deciding what belongs in the title sequence, and guiding the editing style, cuts, and transitions around the track.
Footage credits
Host recordings: Earl Pod. Additional footage and imagery: NASA Apollo 11; SpaceX; Sandia National Laboratories (electrical arc footage); NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt (IPAC); NASA, ESA, F. Summers, J. DePasquale, G. Bacon, and Z. Levay (STScI), with H. Ferguson, A. Koekemoer, and the CANDELS Team; NOAA Ocean Exploration (World of Water and Seafloor Eyes); Third Life Health.
I feel proud of that. It's personal. It feels like me. Music and video editing aren't areas I've specialized in, but I'm interested in them. Being able to explore that interest and make something this good is exciting.
There is a real dilemma in it, too. I haven't put in the years or thousands of hours of learning an instrument. What I'm doing is different. But I know what I like, and I know how to use AI to help guide something toward it.
How do you think about someone making something that feels new and exciting to them? Maybe it is new, and maybe it isn't. Does that change what it means to make it, or the enjoyment they get from it? I don't have a settled answer.
What excites me is that the combination of my life, my taste, and the context I give these tools could lead to something I wouldn't otherwise have made. I can keep listening, adjusting, and finding out.
AI is getting really powerful, and that is a little scary, honestly. I can feel that at the same time as the excitement.