What makes music “real” — is it the instruments, the voice, the creator’s intention or something else entirely? Dustin Ballard, the creative force behind the viral channel “There I Ruined It,” explores the weird, wonderful and sometimes unsettling ways AI is reshaping music. With fiddle solos and AI-powered mashups of your favorite songs, he invites us to ask: Are new tools fostering creativity, or just making noise?For a chance to give your own TED Talk, fill out the Idea Search Application: ted.com/ideasearch.Interested in learning more about upcoming TED events? Follow these links:TEDNext: ted.com/futureyouTEDSports: ted.com/sportsTEDAI Vienna: ted.com/ai-viennaTEDAI San Francisco: ted.com/ai-sf Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity every day. I'm your host, Elise Hu. Did you know that when the phonograph first came out in the early 1900s, some argued that pre-recorded music wasn't real music? In this talk, musician and social media creator Dustin Ballard says we're still wrestling with that question today.
What makes music real music in the first place? Dustin is known for his popular YouTube channel, There I Ruined It, where he uses artistry and AI to quote, lovingly destroy our favorite songs. He weaves us through a few hilarious examples of different ways he's quote, ruined songs and complicates our questions around AI's role in music making.
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I'll start today with some obscure music history. So if you're a David Bowie fan, you may already know this. But the chorus of the song Starman was actually borrowed from a 1937 blues song by T-Bone Fletcher, which I'm going to play you a clip of.
There's a starman waiting in the sky. He'd like to come and meet us, but he thinks he'd blow our minds.
There's a star man waiting in the sky Now, I love Bowie's cover, but there's just something about a beat-up guitar and an old man singing straight from the soul that to me really gets to the emotion of the song. And I think what's most interesting is that I just made up that entire story. It was actually 100% AI. I apologize for lying, but there is a reason for it.
I'd like to start with a question. What is real music? Now, this is a question that's come up with synthesizers, with sampling and hip-hop music, even with the phonograph when it first came out in the 1800s. People back then debated whether or not reproduced music was real music. John Philip Sousa, the Taylor Swift of his day, was not a fan.
He said that phonographs were a substitute for human skill, intelligence and soul. They reduced the expression of music to a mathematical system. It almost sounds like he's talking about AI, doesn't it? So is AI real music? I believe that when it's in the hands of musicians, it can be. But first, let me give you some context for why I think that.
So I run a parody music social media channel called There I Ruined It. This is just a weird evening hobby of mine. My day job is as an advertising creative director. But the purpose of the channel is to ruin music, or as I say, to lovingly destroy your favorite songs. And AI is one of the tools that I often use to do that.
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