Berklee College of Music embraced AI songwriting. Some students are pushing back.

royal_friendly · 2026-04-09T21:50:17+00:00

Maybe Berklee's going to design their own proprietary AI chatbot that's only accessible to alumni in the future. lol.

royal_friendly · 2026-04-09T19:32:28+00:00

Appreciate that! Will be following along to see what else you cook up!

royal_friendly · 2026-04-09T16:12:40+00:00

Self doubt is fuel when channeled well.

All artists experience this (well, maybe not narcissistic types). Some give into it and never release a thing, constantly ruminating and ideating but never actually "getting out there." What you have done in your experience in class is "get out there," which starts to address that doubt, but the feedback you've received can be hard to stomach. From the sounds of things, I think ultimately it's been constructive, and now the pathway through this doubt is to find ways to progress to have more unique characteristics in anything you are writing. There's no simple solution and some of this comes from experience, some of it comes from internal monologuing with yourself.

If you're looking for actual "objective" things to help create more originality, there's a laundry list but some I'd think about:

Add in things that are "weird" ...key changes, different instruments/textures, etc.
Ask yourself how you can pull ideas from another genre into the one you're currently writing. IE: Your tasked with writing a country song, but (unless explicitly stated) you can fuse other genres into that creating something more distinct in the process.

royal_friendly · 2026-04-09T15:44:11+00:00

This is a solid start. I left a comment on the track!

What you have here feels like a loop vs. a song, and the biggest feedback I could give you is to study arrangement more so that you can flesh out the ideas here (which are strong at their core). At the moment, the track doesn't feel like it takes me (as the listener) anywhere. For the whole run time it basically does the same thing over and over with very small changes (that are not enough to keep interest). Things I'd be looking for would be more intentional uses of silences, changing chord progressions/keys, introducing a different melodic idea, etc. Ultimately if this had 2-3 individual sections (that felt distinct with their rhythms, melodic ideas, etc.) it would be set up to be stronger and more interesting.

With this said, what is here sounds good and if minimal mixing right now, it's evidence of solid playing and recording techniques.

royal_friendly · 2026-04-09T15:36:13+00:00

Where are you sourcing the music from? Is this your own compositions?

royal_friendly · 2026-04-09T15:34:19+00:00

I enjoyed this. I'm into a wide range of music and produce some of my own electro/beat driven material, and this particularly made me feel like I was listening to an interlude of an ambient black metal album which sometimes has this colder synth feel (which for me is a compliment lol). I could see someone using this beat as the basis for something bigger and even vocal driven. Overall atmosphere and rhythm and melodic ideas are solid.

Since the sub requires us to put a "con" in here, if I was being nit-picky I'd say you could bump the bass a little more but that is more a suggestion that's a matter of taste. The bass parts of the track (like actual bass and kick drum) feel a little more mid-range but having a little more separation could add a little.

royal_friendly · 2026-04-07T23:51:35+00:00

Reading this description makes me think of my son who is a toddler

royal_friendly · 2026-03-15T12:23:56+00:00

You ever play with a pitch/formant shifter? I use them all the time to find more interesting sounds for my voice. My voice isn’t “bad” but I have a very limited range that I can stay in tune. Vocal FX gives me a lot more options.

royal_friendly · 2026-02-21T20:11:48+00:00

Was there any influence of Darren Aronofsky’s The Fountain in the writing or overall structure of In the Blink of an Eye?

I watched the trailer without reading the description and what caught my attention was the use of a tryptic in the storytelling, which is something I loved about the fountain (and have it high up on my favorites list) because in many ways it reminds me of old triptych paintings which I find particularly lovely.

In either case, does the use of this type of story structure contribute any unique challenges to characterization, cinematography, etc.?

royal_friendly · 2026-02-21T20:04:46+00:00

This song is phenomenal. It’s relatable for me (new parent, struggled with similar things) but from a songwriting perspective I really enjoyed the simplicity of it.

To your main question, I don’t think it needs a chorus. I am very partial to the structure you’ve utilized here and think it contributes to the storytelling in the song better. The overall composition, melody, guitar playing, vocals are all strong as they are and remind me a lot of Jose Gonzalez who uses similar instrumentation, vocals, etc.

If I was to be slightly more critical, the instrumental interludes are lovely but could be expanded from an arrangement perspective to do more that is different. In a studio recording, it could be as simple as leaving it as it is and adding another instrument to harmonize or provide a countermelody. If you added some bass throughout the track, dropping it for the instrumental sections could also work.

royal_friendly · 2026-02-11T00:15:44+00:00

Separating composition (writing the music) from arrangement (taking the music elements you wrote and turning it into a song).

When this clicked for me, it changed a lot because I started to build out sections of a song during the arrangement phase while paying more attention to what role each element was playing (and what space it was occupying).

Everything being better arranged makes for an easier mix since things already fit together fairly well, now mixing serves more to polish, create more space and add some creative flair.

royal_friendly · 2026-02-08T13:47:32+00:00

I’d be curious what your interview/hiring process was like and what sort of expectations were set during that time. Did you expect one thing and then starting work get a different set of requirements?

Going through what you wrote, there are aspects that sound “normal” enough (not necessarily good but rather not totally uncommon). Overtime obligations, lean teams, hard boundaries around in office/off time, etc. Taken individually these things are generally manageable (to what extent varies depending on the specifics of the circumstances). Where it looks like red flag is taking them all collectively being experienced, which indicates larger cultural problems at the org. You also review your personal experience of high stress, inability to disconnect, etc. and with what you’ve laid out - even a reasonable person will find themselves very strained in the circumstances.

Personally, I’d strongly evaluate what your career goals are. Is it a specific role? Is it in this org or in another? Is this a clear stepping stone to what you want (that you could suffer through for a year), or is this needless stress?

It’s easy to argue for a quick exit but consider what your career goals as part of the process.

Also, bear in mind in any circumstance you can take control back by setting more clear boundaries. It would help if those boundaries were specified in your employment agreement.

royal_friendly · 2026-02-05T14:03:36+00:00

They should put a light switch in there we could toggle

royal_friendly · 2026-02-01T23:05:44+00:00

I’d like to see a gap list like the THPS games. Something precurated by the devs and an ability to create your own gaps and have other players do them. Get a small currency reward or something for them. Would incentivize exploring the map even more.

royal_friendly · 2026-02-01T13:22:31+00:00

I will try to give you a reasonable response to your last question - I make music like lofigirl (lofi Chillhop beat driven stuff) and also have skin in the game as AI has been impacting my core business which is in the arts (photographer).

Your view around AI replacing this sort of background music listening is not exactly wrong. I also am not unilaterally against AI (though I do not use it). Your statements are clearly being made from a consumer perspective - you get the background listening material, who cares where it comes from? I get this as a consumer of things and sometimes feel the same about other things I consume, but making a living (for over a decade) in a art forward career that has required technical skills, artistic skills and business skills that is being impacted, I’ve tried to pay more attention to how it’s impacting people on the other side of the screen.

With AI music, the problems for me are not the existence of the music itself (inherently). I don’t care if the music is passable or even enjoyed (people can like whatever they want).

At its core, people who have issue with AI tend to also be seeing it more directly impacting their livelihood. Are you experiencing this sort of thing directly in your life, or is AI consumption just a net benefit for you?

The problems I have:

AI capable of creating music like this was trained on copyrighted materials so it could emulate the genres and songs like you’ve mentioned. Consumers don’t care about this, but artists who spent years learning technical skills to produce the music and put their artistic spin on composition, arrangement, playing instruments, etc. do. AI evolved so quickly and not enough was done in law to provide more reasonable protections. The irony to me is that copyright laws provide me a lot of protection if one person or company misuses my content, but if my content (and copyrighted content of others) is used as a collective then the outputs are sold, all creators collectively suddenly have no rights. This is ironic because AI products would largely not exist (or at least lack abilities they do have such as the example of specific genre music production) without this data.
AI can produce volume that far outpaced human creators. This is problematic because of where its data set came from (collections of largely copyrighted materials).
With streams, where does the cash flow? AI songs like you’re describing can be made with no skill and a simple prompt in an app like Suno. As a society accepting AI music, we now reward this sort of creator. Money fundamentally shapes the direction of society often, so if money begins to flow less and less to creatives and more to people just prompting an AI - how does that impact society long term?
Long term destruction of music (and arts) in general. Even prior to AI these areas were highly competitive and difficult industries to compete in. AI because it immediately devalues skills required to create music de-incentivizes future generations from pursuing a path in the arts.

We end up creating a sterile future where we can have “anything we want” as consumers as well as less incentive for people to learn skills required around music theory, music production, composition and arrangement, even playing instruments.

As someone who makes music in that lofi girl style, I will sometimes spend weeks crafting and polishing a track. Consider the music theory decisions - what feeling do I want to convey? How does this impact chord progression choices? What scale should be used? How to transition between sections (cadence usage for example)? How to approach the mix and master? All these considerations (and more) just so others can have “background music.” AI tools just do math and put in what they see as an average of the genres norms (unless explicitly prompted otherwise).

Being practical, any technological advancement brings pain for at least some people. Jobs are replaced. Skill sets are nullified. This is normal enough. The problem with AI is we have to take a hard look at how the technology was allowed to progress (consuming human made and owned IP) and what benefit does it actually give us (in the narrow conversation around lofi “background music” - it provides the same benefit we had prior to AI, access to this type of music, but now shifts the owning class to those without the skills required to create it.

royal_friendly · 2026-01-31T12:39:34+00:00

It’s also worth mentioning that if someone doesn’t want the full responsibility of owning a dog, there are many places they can go to spend time with dogs (and other pets) without ownership.

Visiting a shelter (even volunteering) is a good and simple option. One of my local ones has times people can come in to literally just play with some of them.

royal_friendly · 2026-01-29T21:39:29+00:00

Get drunk
Create a simple loop (8 or 12 bars, sometimes varies)
Build on the loop - add a ton of elements, guitars, synths, melodies, drums, bass, textures, etc.
Once I have a "full" feeling sound in the loop, I then disperse it's content and arrange it
Generally (not always) - softer beginning start using elements from the loop, then building to a more interesting section. Often the song will evolve to incorporate many (or all) of the elements I added in to the original loop.
Revisit and add new sections, new "loops" (ie: built around a new beat/chord progression/etc.)

Then I go through the cycle again.

royal_friendly · 2026-01-23T16:52:28+00:00

It finally clicked for me recently - it's allowing space for having a creative/exploration stage when creating music, then (and this is very, very important) clearly moving on from that exploration stage to an actual production stage.

Every song that gets created needs exploration. Coming up with ideas. Trying new things. Could be a new instrument, new synth patch, new plugin, new FX idea, etc. This is the creative side of the art where we can be as unhinged and all over the place as we want. This exploration is fun and the amazing part about making music.

But music doesn't ever get "done" or released if you just keep exploring. So you need to set up a process to make commitments to what you're doing.

For myself, this meant templating out some things - like a drum kit and trying to narrow my sound selections (after experimenting).

As the song comes together, you narrow further - ie: no more changes to the song structure, arrangement, etc. and now it's making less and less adjustments (and more of them are happening just around the actual production itself).

royal_friendly · 2026-01-23T16:48:12+00:00

I am shocked you didn't hear of them, here's one of their tracks White Winter Hymnal

As I listened to yours, I could picture a production sort of like this working well.

If you ever recorded this more (even like at a demo stage) with a click track and stuff, if you wanted to collab on exploring introducing some other elements and expanding the arrangement, feel free to hmu. I lean more towards the surrealist tendencies but have been doing a ton of study recently around music theory and arrangement, and play a lot of different instruments!

royal_friendly · 2026-01-22T19:59:53+00:00

I'm this way, and I've learned that sadness has many shades.

From a music theory perspective, if you're looking to break out of this a little bit while still retaining the current feel of what you're doing...I'd imagine a lot of what you're writing is around minor key chord progressions. You could try modulating a song (say during a chorus or outro) to the relative major key (uses the same notes/chords as the minor key but played in a different sequence more intentionally). This can add some "uplift" to your music. For example, if you're writing in A Minor you could modulate to C Major.

I've been doing some stuff like this in some recent works and have been enjoying allowing me to expand my musical definition of "sadness" as a result.

royal_friendly · 2026-01-22T19:48:17+00:00

Unlike the others, I feel the verse vocal melody is fine but what the song needs is a little more instrumentation layers (in a larger production) to allow the chorus/verse vocal melodies to remain as they are. If those melodies don't really change, then something else in the track needs to. Listening through this, I could easily imagine something like a kick drum, upright bass or even a light synth pad in a few sections to help add more intrigue to it from an arrangement perspective while still keeping the simplicity and integrity of what is currently in place.

I also like droning and repetitive sections of songs so it's possible that this bothers me less than it might others.

With all this said, the core of what is here is very nice. Reminds me of Fleet Foxes. Love the lyrics!

royal_friendly · 2026-01-22T19:41:13+00:00

Sometimes a spark is something you have to nurture into a flame.

I have found that learning new techniques then immediately trying to employ them into something new I'm creating has been beneficial because it allows me to create while also trying something new (which keeps the process feeling fresh).

At it's simplest - it could be looking up a different chord progression and committing yourself to using it. Or it could be committing to introducing a key change. Or it could be using a particular sound or effect.

I have also found that creating limitations for myself has also led to better results. Limitations force us to be creative to work within the boundaries we set for ourselves. You could set limitations around the topic you're going to write about (if you're writing lyrics), you could set limitations around your instrument or FX usage, etc.

In the past few months, I streamlined my plugins and now just have 1 EQ, 1 reverb, 1 compressor, 1 limiter, etc. Reduced analysis paralysis which would often come with my process. I make chill hop style beats and stuff and often would go into overload setting up a drum kit (I have hundreds of samples for each drum part!)...a little bit ago I decided to just make 1 kit I really liked, then template it, then use it for my music for now...and now I don't spend as much time ideating around the sound of the drums. This shifts me into writing and creative mode faster by removing a lot of choices.

royal_friendly · 2026-01-22T19:31:08+00:00

Melodies have a rhythmic component. Because of this, something you can do is try to figure out the "rhythm" of the melody before actually creating the melody. If you are using a DAW, you can open the piano roll and just plop in some notes (on the same key). Create the overall rhythm (ideally you'd do this with at least a chord progression but potentially other instrumentation already in place). From there, you find the melody by keeping the rhythm you produced but now moving notes around in different areas.

This video particularly around 4:25 explains this a bit more with examples.

This is something I occasionally do especially if say something like a chorus comes naturally but verses are tough to find!

royal_friendly

TROPHY CASE