Why Suno’s AI is so useful (and inspiring) for human songwriters

I’ve been a musician almost all of my life, and I am not only not scared of AI in music, but I’m also ready for a new era of creativity.

I’m still romantic about what music fundamentally is, the byproduct of human depth and creativity.

But music can also be a product or a hybrid.

For example, I love live music, especially jazz. However, I’ve played jazz enough to understand that the art of it is rooted in math, and that someone who knows their scales and is talented enough to develop some feel will sound fantastic on stage. But the ‘feel’ means nothing without understanding the formulae and being able to move the fingers fast.

In songwriting, we learn about popular three- and four-chord patterns. You know the songs: G-D-Em-C or 1-5-6-4, er, I-V-VI-IV. It’s a formula.

Music is math. Math doesn’t move the soul.

But music is also the trigger for every emotion known to man. Music can inspire us, bring joy, summon sadness and sentimentality, and keep us company. Some songs and albums have been with me since I was 13 or 14.

I listened to Robbie Williams’ “Angels” last night and was reminded that every time he sings the final chorus, I make a fist as if I were singing along. America missed the boat on that guy. So good.

But I’ve chased a songwriting dream since I was 17, and while I consider my early work on the verge of terrible — I’m not shabby these days. For what it’s worth, I never moved to New York or Nashville, Austin or L.A., but I regularly submitted songs to publishers and even joined an organization called TAXI to help me connect original work to those who would use it and (ideally) pay me.

LOL to that. Who needs money?

But I got fantastic feedback over the years, some of it very positive — and one of the common themes was that I needed better demos. I recorded most of my TAXI demos in one of my Dallas-area apartments from 2000-05 with my Korg Triton, an acoustic guitar and my big TASCAM 8-track recorder. For what it’s worth, I still have all three, and I loved that recording process.

On the other hand, I’m not deluded enough to believe the demo work was excellent. It was passable at best, and the folks at TAXI were right to point it out. My aim was always to present the song in a form that a singer, a band, a publisher, or an agent could recognize and envision as a fit for their project.

But it was never good enough, even though often the songs were — not according to me, according to the judges.

Enter Suno. That AI tool gets folks worked up. It’s either the end of music and art as we know it, or the end of music and art as we know it. But in a recent YouTube video, Rick Beato noted that even Nashville songwriters were starting to use Suno to make their demos.

Sold. If those cats are accepting the tool, I sure as heck am.

I posted something about Suno on LinkedIn a week ago, and the feedback from strangers was so negative that I deleted it because I didn’t need the bad juju. What Rick Beato is describing above is the new reality of the songwriting and music production process, which doesn’t have to usurp creativity — know what I mean?

If something is organically written and I want to use a tool like Suno to cover myself, why do you (a stranger on LinkedIn) give a shit? Right?

I’m not romantic about the process of producing music, which is what I believe AI does best, less generative and more auxiliary — and I wanted to share an example that I’m really proud of, not because of the final version that Suno produced but because it brought out the best in the original work.

Here is my original song from 2010 called, “Feels Like Rain.”

And then check out what Suno did with it (at my direction):

Sorry, but that inspires me to go back to the piano, the keyboard, the guitar, and create (organically) some more, knowing that Suno can help me turn it into something well-produced. No, it’s not perfect (and yes, I am a ‘pro’ customer), but when it hits, it hits. I’ll write about it a lot here in the future, so if it interests you, follow along.

And if you’re a Luddite, get over it.

P.S. This tool is going to help the little guy way more than the millionaire or billionaire — and so when you hear the bellyaching about it, understand what the REAL concern there is.