[datsci_est_2015]

> Electronic music made it so you didn’t have to learn to play an instrument.

This is cliche. Most celebrated artists in the electronic music world can play several instruments, if not expertly, than at least with enough familiarity to understand the nuances of musical performance.

Electronic musicians are more akin to composers and probably have more in common with mathematicians and programmers in the way that they practice their craft, whereas musical performers probably have more in common with athletes in the way that they practice their craft.

[butlike]

You also need to understand how instruments make sound at an engineering level if you want to make timbre-perfect synthesizers which sound like said instrument, for instance

[crucialfelix]

Electronic music is also very closely related to computer animation. Animated film technology is much more advanced, but a lot of techniques are similar.

[notahacker]

Probably a good analogy too. Pixar's creative process is quite different from drawing it frame by frame and at least some aspects of it will use have used some sort of generative process, but it's incredibly involved and conscious in a way that typing "video of cute cartoon cat, Pixar style" into a prompt isn't.

Same applies to Bandcamp not having any issues with people making music in a DAW

[crucialfelix]

I watched some youtube video where they got complete beginners to animate a character jumping across a canyon gap. No skills, no muscle memory, constant struggling. The character looks like a rag doll. Then the professional does it and she's playing with the arc of the jump, adding emotion to the jump, adding little details like turning the head back for a reaction shot. She's playing with it, and explaining her thoughts and having fun. That really shows how much artistic skill there is involved. It's not just "automation". It's like brush strokes, but applied to splines and velocity curves and shaders.

People don't understand that about music either. We may use sequencers and automation, but the work happens in real time, and it is an instrument that we are playing. It's just that we work at a higher level than just playing something on a keyboard.

[schnitzelstoat]

Yeah, but we also haven't seen what making actually decent music or movies or whatever with AI will look like. Maybe it simply won't be possible and there will not be a market for it.

But if it is possible it's probably going to be a lot more involved than just '"video of cute cartoon cat, Pixar style" into a prompt'.

[Gander5739]

You might be interested in this article: https://www.economist.com/culture/2023/05/24/art-made-by-art...

Though relatively old in the AI world (2023), it's still quite interesting.

In case you can't access the article, the prompt used is:

> 35mm, 1990s action film still, close-up of a bearded man browsing for bottles inside a liquor store. WATCH OUT BEHIND YOU!!! (background action occurs)…a white benz truck crashes through a store window, exploding into the background…broken glass flies everywhere, flaming debris sparkles light the neon night, 90s CGI, gritty realism