What makes music real in an age of computers and artificial intelligence?

          That’s the question I focused on in the creation of this project. What makes music real? What defines the boundaries of authenticity when it comes to creating music? Prior knowledge, awareness of music, and the actual test of this project provided a definitive answer. 

          My clear interest in music started young, as I’d say it is something that was clear and always there. Although I started playing at the age of nine, I have grown up, and in a way, have been groomed to music. I demonstrate an evident passion, and that is what led me to pursue the objective of this project. As I worked on each step and aspect of making this possible, I realized and enjoyed the process of what it took to demonstrate the clear and drastic difference in a track recorded with live instruments, and a track created with the instruments of a particular music software-Pro-Tools. Throughout the process of working on the track itself, creating the lines and finding the right blend, a lot of focus, precision, and some patience was required. Recording all of the lines, matching the wave lengths (of the individual recordings)-aligning each instruments’ lines, compressing individual tracks, adjusting the intensity and sound level to create the “right” blend, and more, all come into play in order to make both tracks complete. I realized this specific project required a lot of knowledge of not only knowing how to work the music software, but having knowledge of music and other aspects, like arranging. That is what made this project a task, but enjoyable. 

          When playing the recordings for everyone in the class, it was great to see how receptive they were. How they immediately enjoyed the tracks before the melody of the tune even came in, and how they were open to the vision and goal that I initially had while making this possible. However, it was very interesting discovering their thoughts and input, in terms of which recording they thought was “real”-which recording consisted of actual/live musicians, and their reasonings as to why they thought so. A majority thought the “fake” track, consisting of sampled instruments off of Pro-Tools was real, authentic, and that the actual studio recorded track was too “clean,” neat, “put together,” and blended too well to be real musicians. Although I am a musician, have experience with executing this kind of project, have knowledge of music, and played on the track with my peers, I did find a way to see and understand why they felt that way. But regardless, I evidently knew, and can easily tell the difference of the tracks (whether I played on it or not). It was also an automatic reaction and instinct for the other musicians that have heard the tracks. They knew which track was “real.” And it was enlightening, as I witnessed the contrast in thoughts and views. 

          Overall, I found this project to be enjoyable, insightful, and a stepping stone to finishing the track and making it a finished product, to be released.