[Harp-L] Harp-L Digest, Vol 274, Issue 2 - Milk and Cream

[Richard Hammersley]

Congratulations David

Milk and Cream is the 1st AI generated (or should that be assisted?) song I have heard that is actually enjoyable to listen to, plus the cartoon! I’ve only dipped a finger into AI apps with the possible plan of recording demos of my songs that sound ‘better’ than I do especially regarding the singing, but I can tell that, as you put it, it will be a real challenge to get AI generated stuff to “mellow out”; in other words take the AI material as a base then edit and select to get a final result.  You have inspired me however. 

With my other experimental electronic music hat on, I remember that way back in the 1970s synthesisers were seen as not proper music and cheating. Then in the late 1980s sequencing was also not proper and was cheating. Some people moaned about when Kraftwerk re-recorded their music this way, rather than using early Moog synths etc., that often went out of tune/ time. Now synths and sequencing and re-tuning are mainstream and omni-present in popular music, both in recordings and live.  I am sure AI is going the same way. Indeed you apparently can already get pedals that generate backing tracks on the fly to follow what you are playing.

When a robot can give a live sleazy maxed out performance in a dive, improvise with humans live or simply play a real harmonica well, then we will really have something to worry about :) It’s coming. E.g. robot.cellist.com. I think robots playing harmonica skilfully will take a long time. 

Best wishes
Richard

> 
> 
> Message: 6
> Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2026 13:09:58 -0700
> From: David Fairweather <dmf273 at xxxxx>
> To: harp-l at xxxxx
> Subject: [Harp-L] Harptificial Intelligence
> Message-ID:
> 	<CAHZ5whZ0T_jAPWvHbnhtUXpLGaOs+WR4H3nTSLWodDNtdck9oQ at xxxxx>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
> 
> I dare say I have more hands on experience with AI music and AI art as
> anyone on this list including AI harmonica. I know it's strengths and its
> weaknesses and I know it's already able to fool 90 percent of non harp
> playing listeners. But I'm not threatened by it and I have fun making stuff
> like this. Some of you might even think it sounds like me and that's not
> unintentional. Getting the AI to mellow out can be a real challenge. But I
> suppose that's true for many human players these days.
> 
> Anyway everything you see and hear in this link is 100% AI. Don't get mad
> at me. "We're just singing about a little milk and cream".
> 
> https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iHxajqiTRqiLYr31bu8ZCX3YGwBSk3Xy/view?usp=drivesdk
> 
>