What to do about preparing for #FAWM ?

[reinderdijkhuis@mastodon.art]

What to do about preparing for #FAWM ? Have another shot at learning enough about using synthesizers during January? Or hold out for further improvement in my arthritis and try to practice the guitar?

And is FAWM even going to be worth it? Last year felt like a transitional year, the last where you could be reasonably sure that most songs weren't AI generated and the ones that were were easy to identify.

[guitargabe@musicians.today]

@reinderdijkhuis I never prepare for FAWM specifically, but I’ve always got an new thing to explore. This year I’ve been pretty seriously studying classical voice for the first time in my life (almost for a year now), and I’m really curious to see how that effects not only my vocals themselves and ease of tracking but the vocal melodies I write.

[guitargabe@musicians.today]

@reinderdijkhuis as for the second part, IDK, I feel I can be reasonably sure that a healthy part of the FAWM population is gonna be producing the same lo-fi, earnest demos that beautifully preserve the mistakes of just having written a song. I’m not sure, as I’ve never used AI stuff, but I suspect that the sort of rawness you get there is not something that music AI is built for. Plus, honestly, I mostly do FAWM for me, and I feel like some people using AI doesn’t lessen my work.

[reinderdijkhuis@mastodon.art]

@guitargabe I can tell you that last year, the increased use of generative AI by participants, including some I'd partnered with, dampened my enthusiasm for the event and for developing songs through that channel at that time (and as a consequence, indirectly lessened my work), as did hearing about it during the weekly Euro video calls.

What I worry about is that it's not just gonna be some people this time around, that the floodgates will truly open..

[guitargabe@musicians.today]

@reinderdijkhuis Well, you can bet mine’s AI-free, and I reckon there will be a healthy population of us “never AI” types that continue to find each other. Deep down, you and I know we’re communicating real human emotions in real human ways, and I have faith that that’ll remain an inimitable element of real art.