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jeffjask Aug 16 2024 at 10:16 AM	Hey Pat, My name is Jeff Jaskowiak. Currently I am the director of the Digital Audio Recording Arts program at the University of St. Francis in Joliet IL. darausf.com And I am also the co-owner of bittenmusic.com a streaming service that actually pays Artists for streaming their music. I had the privilege and honor of studying with you at the Jamey Aebersold Jazz clinics in 1973 as well as Mick Goodrick the week before. I have been one of your super fans ever since. Your teaching, mentoring, and striving for excellence in all that you do, have permanently shaped and molded me as a musician and as an instructor. I have livelong gratitude for studying and being with you that week. One of the places I have been going is writing blogs for Bitten Music. And one of the directions in that writing that has a pull on me is AI in music and how it may affect the livelihoods of musical artists. I was wondering if we could explore this quote from your NPR a few weeks ago. “OK so that leads us to the AI moment. I have no fear of any of this stuff. You know, for me, it’s like, OK, and we’ve got more tools now because I believe so thoroughly in the power of humanity. In the world of music, there is no anybody even close to being able to AI soul. And the soul part of it and the communicative nature of what music uniquely offers is going to always reign supreme, in my opinion, because it’s something that goes beyond what one and zero might ever offer. And that’s where I get to live every night. And I understand what that is on a personal level to the point where I have no fear of anything that’s going to encroach on that.” The idea I’d like to dig into is ‘In the world of music, there is no anybody even close to being able to AI soul.’ If I may be so bold, I am going to lunge an explanation of what you mean be by soul. You have tens of thousands of hours of practicing, performing, composing and recording built into your physiology, imagination and musical responsiveness and experiences that allows you to flow into the creative mode, as Mick would say, on a moment- by-moment daily basis, especially when you are inspired by other fantastic players as well as life events and other forms of Art, expression and excellence. Are these skills, abilities, sensibilities and awareness part of your meaning of soul? What if an AI company got access to your tracks and was able to train, in an isolated way, on all the elements of your execution, which includes your signature tone, phrasing, effects, compositional structures, improvisational approaches and as many nuances as it could find, in essence the supreme transcriber of all things Pat Metheny, would that high powered analysis get close to soul? Since I am mainly discussing recordings, I am sure the vast amount of recordings you have released would be of course be absolutely driven with your soul, the best of your work. What if this unprecedented investigation of your discographies resulted in a Pat Metheny replica or clone, where an end user could prompt or generate a Pat Metheny composition or solo infused and baked in with all the elements of your musical soul? Do you think the soul of Pat Metheny could exist in this avatar? So if you have a moment to reply it would be a treasure to reconnect with you once again. Blessings, love and peace to you and all that you continue to pursue. Thanks! All the best, Jeff Jaskowiak jeffjask@gmail.com
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yossarian Jan 02 2025 at 12:07 PM	Interesting. Not given this a lot of thought but I think that Ian has slightly misdirected his response. AI is surely a threat to library music composers and some pop writers but I think what Pat was talking about was in the realm of human live performance in jazz or advanced harmonic music where shows and ’the moment’ matter so much
MarcNebo Sep 23 2024 at 11:12 PM	Ian: Check out the whole interview on NPR and read the Transcript. I don’t know much about AI, but I do see that there will be people abusing this technology. My take on Pat’s comments is that AI can’t compete with the power of an individual’s creativity. I think a prime example is all the technology that went into his Orchestrion project. Only Pat Metheny could create this amazing production. I caught the show in Chicago years ago and it was a visual and aural overload (in a great way).
Ian Sep 18 2024 at 8:55 AM	I’m afraid that I don’t share Pat’s optimism about AI in music. If the powers that be can make more money putting out electronically generated music in a shorter amount of time than they can dealing with human musicians, I think we’ll be hearing a lot more AI music in the future.
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