The Music Business Buddy
A podcast that aims to educate and inspire music creators in their quest to achieving their goals by gaining a greater understanding of the business of music. A new episode is released each Wednesday and aims to offer clarity and insight into a range of subjects across the music industry, all through the lens of a music creator for the benefit of other music creators. The series includes soundbites and interviews with guests from all over the world together with commentary and clarity on a range of topics. The podcast is hosted by award winning music industry professional Jonny Amos.
Jonny Amos is a music producer with credits on a range of major and independent labels, a songwriter with chart success in Europe and Asia, a senior lecturer in both music creation and music business at BIMM University UK, director of The SongLab Ltd and the author of The Music Business for Music Creators.
www.jonnyamos.com
The Music Business Buddy
Episode 49: Ethical AI Music Creation with DAACI's Annemarie Gaillard
Step into the fascinating world of ethical AI music creation with Annemarie Gaillard from DAACI as she reveals how technology can amplify your creative process without replacing the human touch.
What makes DAACI fundamentally different from other AI music tools? "We haven't trained an AI, we have taught an AI," Annemarie explains, highlighting their approach based on musicology and music theory rather than scraping existing works. With 30+ years of research and 70 patents behind them, DAACI have created tools that respect artistry while solving real problems for composers and content creators.
Annemarie's extraordinary journey from classical music training through acting, drama therapy, and startup scaling brings a rich perspective to her role as Head of Partnerships at DAACI. This multidimensional background informs her passionate advocacy for tools that enhance creativity rather than diminish artistic ownership.
The conversation explores DAACI's two main product lines—Adaptive tools for seamless music editing and Generative tools that function as creative co-pilots. Their technology ensures complete traceability from input to output, guaranteeing fair attribution and royalty distribution.
For composers struggling with creative blocks or tedious aspects of production, these ethical AI tools offer a solution that preserves artistic integrity. As Annemarie beautifully puts it, these technologies are simply "another colour in your paint box" that can help express what's already in your head.
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The Music Business Buddy. The Music Business Buddy Hello everybody and a very warm welcome to you. You're listening to the Music Business Buddy with me, johnny Amos, podcasting out of Birmingham in England. I'm the author of the book the Music Business for Music Creators, available in hardback, paperback and ebook format. I'm also a music creator with a variety of credits I'm a consultant, an artist manager and a senior lecturer in both music business and music creation. Wherever you are and whatever you do, consider yourself welcome to this podcast and to a part of the community around it. I'm here to try and educate and inspire music creators from all over the world in their quest to achieving their goals by gaining a greater understanding of the business of music.
Speaker 1:Okay, so today we are talking AI tools and I have an absolutely fantastic lady joining me by the name of Anne-Marie Gaylard, from Darcy that's D-A-A-C-I Darcy, so if you've never heard of Darcy before, they are a technology, information and media company that are set to power music creativity for the next generation of composers and content creators. So they create next generation smart and AI creative music tools and they do it in a very ethically sound fashion technologies and compass tools that supercharge the creative process, dynamically composing new music in real time and smart editing systems that seamlessly adapt existing tracks, built by world-class team of musicians and composers. Darcy's technology is based on over 30 years of research, incorporating a growing portfolio of 70 granted patents and supported by partnerships with the UKRI Centre for Doctoral Training in Artificial Intelligence and Music at Queen Mary University of London and the innovative Abbey Road Red Incubator. Darcy is the go-to solution for creators who make and use music. So they build a set of tools for music creators and also for those that work on an editorial level in film and TV that wish to use music. What do they do? Well, they've created a bunch of different things that save a lot of people, a lot of time, and they do it in a very, very ethically sound fashion. So Anne-Marie is a fantastic advocate for what they are all about.
Speaker 1:So I'm going to hand over to the interview. I hope that you enjoy what you're about to hear, anne-marie. Welcome to the Music Business, buddy. It's good to have you here. Thank you for joining me. How are you?
Speaker 2:I'm very well, Jonny. It's great to be here. Thank you so much for inviting me onto the show.
Speaker 1:I know the pleasure is mine. It's really I'm excited to talk to you and Marie. I've got to say this to begin with I must start by just acknowledging Datsy's ethical approach right to training for their product line. How important is that value in the company's kind of message and mission, etc okay.
Speaker 2:So first of all, I think really important to say um, what darcy is not. So we are not a deep learning mechanism, training on data sets. We are not ingesting. When it comes to the music industry in particular, you know, other people's lives work into a system, uh, where people aren't getting compensatedated where they haven't given consent. That's not the sort of system that we have. So we haven't trained an AI, we have taught an AI. We say taught an AI a system based on the principles of music.
Speaker 2:So musicology, music theory and music research basically the building blocks of what music is, and it's a very different approach. We say it is ethical AI and, of course, it's a value that is at well, it's the beating heart of everything that we do. You know, we are a team of musicians, artists, composers. We always want to make sure that artists are protected with this technology, and especially as it evolves and emerges, and we're just basically making tools that enhance and amplify the creative process, but never replace artists. We also, you know our system. The unique part of our system as well, is that our technology ensures full traceability of all the musical elements. So making sure that, you know, we can trace from input right through to output and this means that you know it is a transparent attribution system and has an ethical framework for fair royalty distribution for rights holders. So again, this is very unique and a very different approach.
Speaker 2:I think we always have to think about, you know, what makes music, how do we make music? And I think we, as humans, we write from a very human place, from our soul, from our life experiences. You know what times we've been happy, times we've been sad. I don't believe any tech can ever or should ever replace that. But I think ai, done in the right way, in the ethical way, can just help us get to places a bit faster, you know, speed up some of the parts of the composition process, and that kind of makes room then for the parts that we actually really enjoy and we want to spend more time on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, brilliant answer yeah, I mean, that is absolutely spot on and and I think the the time saving aspect there is is one of the crucial things. Um, I think in one of the things that I've noticed in in recent years, amory is is, is is a a problem amongst many younger music creators. Um, that procrastinate quite a lot and don't finish projects and it, you know, might be maybe because they've got an abundance of tools at their disposal, etc. But sometimes that can kind of slow down that, the sort of basic cognition of creating music. So when you've got, you know, a kind of a co-pilot with you, um, that can you speed things up a little bit. It's still on the creator to go do I want to use that idea over there, um, but it's just, you know it's, it's, it's. It can only help the process in many ways I agree, like I said, if it.
Speaker 2:You know, of course there are tech firms, companies out there that are not doing this in the right way, and rightly so. The music industry has gone hold on a wee second. This is without our permission. We're not getting compensated and I think you know it's important that we don't allow that approach to happen. But, like I said, done in the right way. I mean, these tools are so effective, productivity, efficiency rises.
Speaker 2:It's kind of just like having another color in your paint box, you know, in your palette, and maybe a new paint brush to work with. You are still in the driving seat to yours. It's still your creative ideas, as you said, johnny. It's just helping you get there a little bit faster. And also, you know, sometimes I think as artists we can get stuck in creative ruts or loops. You know it happens to the best of us, for whatever reason, and sometimes you just need a bit of inspiration. And I think these tools can kind of just help generate, get, get the brain going a bit and, you know, generate some new ideas, and certainly that's what we're doing with our tools at darcy. So, um, and there are other tools out there that are doing similar things. So I think, yeah, done in the right way. These, these are powerful tools that are there just to kind of co-pilot with us yeah good, I said datsy earlier.
Speaker 2:It's dartsy right darcy, I know we get all sorts but it's darcy, don't worry, apologies um I'll remember that now shall not make that mistake again.
Speaker 1:Um, so well, let's, let's talk about some of the the tools there, because you got a really exciting product line. So, um, correct me if I've got any of this wrong, amaran right so adaptive is built to be a tool to be used by music users on an editorial level, and generative is designed as a co-pilot for music creators. Is that right?
Speaker 2:yeah, pretty much. Yeah, I would say that they're both um co-pilots, just for different purposes. So, um, the adaptive side um is basically very clever editing tools of pre-existent licensed music. So, as a platform, um, it enables sort of effortless custom music edits. So adaptive is basically just very clever editing of pre-existing licensed uh, licensed music, so enables really, you know, effortless custom music edits and and seamless video syncs as well, and we license that tech on a b2b level.
Speaker 2:The generative side um is just basically clever tools for music creators who, you know, like I said before, they're to assist and amplify their creative journey. Um, now, very recently, um and this might be a bit of a shameless plug, so do feel free to edit it out but it's been very exciting for us at the moment, johnny, because we, you know, on the generative side of things, we just completed a year-long Innovate UK grant and that was with BIM University and Lewis Silken LLP, and through that grant and also recent investment, it's kind of propelled our tech stack on the generative side towards something we were sort of trying to get to anyhow, but we were sort of gone perhaps at a bit of a slower pace and, yes, it's propelled us forward to the launch in beta of a creator app for music. So putting all of the Darcy smarts and the Darcy brain into one user friendly mobile phone app. We've just launched that into beta. It's incredibly exciting. It is very, very clever technology and we are looking for people to come and try it out.
Speaker 2:Give us feedback. Our doors are always open. We love to hear from the music and creator community. Um, so yeah, if anybody fancies giving it a go, please do ah, very good.
Speaker 1:Okay, so I could drop a link to that in the description of this episode brilliant.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's called whistle, which w-i-s-l, which stands for what it sounds like um, and there's a link I'll give you, johnny. People can click on it, download it and test flight. It's on ios, uh, 17 and above only. At the moment. We will build an android version. We promise um, but we do need feedback, so it'd be fabulous if people could give it a go and give us some feedback.
Speaker 1:Brilliant. Ok, I'll consider it done. Ok, well, that's a really really cool, exciting thing for people to engage with. So on the adaptive side, so is it that? Let's see if I've got this right. So let's imagine you're a music supervisor or TV producer. You're in a spot where you go, right, we've got this piece of music, this song, this recording over here. We want to try and make it fit to this particular scene that we're editing, and sometimes that editing process, even if you've got the skills and the software to do it, it can be quite time consuming. So is adaptive used for people in that situation to save them time?
Speaker 2:Absolutely, that's exactly what it does and of, and of course you know quite a lot of jobs. Come in on a friday afternoon 3 pm, need to be at the door by five, you know, um, so exactly, it just speeds up the editing process, um, but it it makes, you know, it's such a clever system. It really, um makes sure to keep the, the uh piece, the, the composition, completely intact. So it takes into consideration things like the upbeat, the anacrusis, um, you know the beat before the bar. Everything makes musical sense. Anything we don't dial see has to make musical sense because, like I said, we're musicians, so why would we create something that doesn't? So, um, yeah, it's hugely powerful and, um, it means that you can, you know, at mice clicks, do a brilliant edit of a piece to fit your, your um, your images or your, your video, you know. So, um, yeah, that technology is really really exciting.
Speaker 2:I I work more on the generative side of our tech, so I've been very involved in um. You know, we launched a plug-in last year natural drums. I was very involved in kind of getting that from closed beta into open beta and then out the door into commercial products. It was really interesting to see that journey in a startup of getting a product out into the world. You kind of as a team, you really go through something, um, and, like I said, you know that's we will be releasing more plugins in the future, but everything all the smarts of the Darcy brain, we've now put into this app all in one place. So, um, yeah, it's exciting to see where it's got to and where it's going to get to and how people will use it.
Speaker 2:Um, I think as well. What's exciting for me with with the app is that, um, you know, anybody can approach this app. So, whether you're new to music or whether you're a pro, you'll just use it in different ways, um, just like you would any tool or, uh, you know. So I think it's a great place for people to start. But, as a pro, you might want to capture your ideas on the go and then later I'll put it into your doll and um and do a bit more sort of granular mixing, editing, creating, etc yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, um, you know, that's just reminding. I remember a few years ago I was on the the gadget show, you know, channel five, and I had to do a product test for um, um, it was like it was really good fun. And they came to the studio and we did and they said the. The whole question was can this ipad pro replace your macbook pro? Right, and the answer was well, no, but it can coexist.
Speaker 1:And the point being that you know there was well, you know, it does this and this and this over here, and you squiggle this here with X, y thing and it gives you this idea. I'd love to get the wow of that and put it into Ableton and do whatever with it. You know, and so that was kind of the answer. Do you think this is similar? You know, and so that was kind of the answer. Do you think this is similar? Do you think there's a kind of hybrid mentality there whereby, you know, not everything has to be done under the roof of one door and pieces of it can be from that sampler over there or from this over here and from that, you know, from that app over there, because you know, to do that, you'd have to be able to, you know, export high resolution wavs and all that kind of stuff. Does the app cater for that kind of thing?
Speaker 2:It will do so. We've got a version in beta out now. It's going to be iterated on as we go. We plan to launch into the app store over the summer and there'll be many more features we'll be adding. But absolutely that is the plan Because I think, having worked with all of the BIM students on the grant who were absolutely fantastic, by the way, um, you know a lot of them when we did sort of focus groups, workshops and we, we sort of introduced this, the idea of the app to them, what its potential would be, a lot of their feedback was, you know, this is great.
Speaker 2:I'm on the go, I want to get my musical idea down, I want to try stuff out and then I can sort of close that, come back to it when I'm ready or when I'm back at home or when I'm not on holiday or whenever it is um. So we really listen to that and and of course, that's what people on the more sort of pro side of music making are going to want um, they'll want to be able to put it into their own DAW and then have more detailed control over over what they're doing. Um, but I don't see why you, as you say, all of these tools can exist. I just think use any tools that help you get that musical idea out into the world, whatever it takes. So, absolutely, I think all of these tools can coexist and work together.
Speaker 1:Okay, amrig, I'm interested to hear a bit about your background as to kind of what led you into the Createc world. Right, you know you're a composer, you know a lot about music and the voice and all sorts of, so what kind of led you into this world?
Speaker 2:Well, johnny, how long have you got? Let's just say, a colourful story, Johnny, my career pathway. Okay, so I started off as a small child playing the piano, singing, playing the boron, or, as some people pronounce it, byron, which is an Irish drum.
Speaker 1:Oh, really Like the hand drum.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it kind of sits on your knee and you sort of you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've always been intrigued as to how they're, because it's like double hand thing. Yeah, I'll give you a few lessons, Johnny. You'll love it. Okay, yeah, I've always been intrigued by that. Sorry, carry, on, it's a brilliant instrument.
Speaker 2:So yeah, so I then went to Cheatham School of Music up in Manchester, which is like a classical music conservatoire for young people. I was very lucky to get accepted into there and I went and did my A-levels there, but of course it is round the clock music. So I went there as a classical singer, um second study pianist. It was incredible as an experience, um, I mean moving to Manchester at the age of 17 and being in a building that looked like Hogwarts. You know, as a wee girl from Northern Ireland it was like where am I? Um. So that was amazing. All my friends were going to music college.
Speaker 2:After that, coming down to London and going to, you know, the academy, guildhall, royal College, etc. I didn't want to be a classical singer, um, I decided and said I wanted to audition for drama school. So I auditioned for drama school down here in london and I ended up going there for three years and then I basically worked as an actor for 10 years and you know, working as an actor involves working as an actor but also not working as an actor. So you know, the highs are high and the lows are low, um, but during, you know, in between, all the acting jobs. I would take on all different types of work, so call centers, waitressing, um, I worked as a PT. But one job in particular that I took on, that kind of you know changed everything for me was I started to work in a community center in East London teaching drama, and it was teaching drama to adults and quite a few of them had come from very difficult backgrounds. Things like, you know, rehabilitating, coming out of prison for coming back into the community and using creative means to express themselves and collaborate and be part of the community. I really started to see again. I think maybe, having been in the acting industry for such a while and feeling maybe a bit jaded, I really sort of re-remembered why people do drama in the first place or anything creative. It's the sheer joy of making stuff with other people, um, you know, waiting on the wings before the show goes up, coming down afterwards and you're buzzing playing a character that's very different from you, and I could see the sheer joy it was bringing. So I sort of went home and I googled you know, drama as therapy and lo and behold, creative arts, psychotherapy and using creative means in therapy is a career. So I went and I retrained as a drama therapist, so a creative arts psychotherapist. I then worked for a number of years in places like the Priory Hospital and schools in East London. I also did a lot of work with actors, so running sessions, well-being sessions alongside rehearsal processes really interesting stuff there.
Speaker 2:Um, and it's kind of during the pandemic um I told you the story was long, johnny, sorry I'm getting there fascinating during the um pandemic. It was very difficult work, very, very difficult work. So, um, I had the opportunity to do a bit of part-time work. Then I had to full-time work with a startup um who were sort of starting programs around the world for students well, not just students but for people to travel and experience the world in these incredible cities but also do an internship in several different industries. So I was in very much from the beginning of that company, scaling it up, open it up in lots of locations, hiring lots of staff, you know growing the company, which was amazing and exciting to watch it, you know, globally expand. But then around that time, having worked there for a few years, I got offered the job at Darcy.
Speaker 2:So I found myself then back coming back into the music, music industry and um, it kind of it feels like a full circle, and you know what. I couldn't do the job I do now without all the experiences that I've done. You know, working as an elf in a Santa's grotto for 10 years on the track Johnny will teach you things about yourself and the world that only that place can teach you. But I think that's what I said. You know we work with a lot of students at DASI and lots of universities and organizations, and I said you know there's not one particular pathway and you might find yourself going off and doing lots of different things and then coming back round to music. But all of these experiences are rich and they'll only serve to help you in the future and make you a more rounded person. I think so. Yeah, you know I used to feel embarrassed by how many different careers I had, and now I love it. I think brilliant, bring it on, keep learning.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's got. That is such. Thank you so much because that is so inspirational. I mean so that you know you're, you're obviously you know, as I already knew before talking to you today, you're brilliant at what you do right and and you know no wonder, because you've come at it from like a multi-dimensional kind of headspace of understanding various aspects of life and of creativity and its impact on people I mean, wow, that's really really interesting. Thank you, I appreciate it.
Speaker 2:It's been a long journey, yeah, yeah, many experiences.
Speaker 1:It's been a long journey.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Many experiences. Well, let's explore a little bit more about the role, or how the role of AI can assist the music-making process for composers. What role can generative play in that music-making for a composer? We looked at this a little bit earlier. But when it comes to the business side of things, right so. So let's say, for example, you know, let's say, you and I sit together and we write a song, right, and we go right, and marie, we've got this song together, brilliant. Let's cut it down the middle 50, 50, 50 is mine, 50 is yours, and we go ahead and we license it however we want, and away we go. So.
Speaker 1:But what about you if you don't do that and you're on your own and you work with generative? Right, there's. That means that song is you know, it's yours, you don't have to copy in any other co-creators on that. So there's a major advantage point. But there's also the issue of kind of. Something that came up recently when I was interviewing the CEO of Youth Music was the subject of loneliness, and he was talking about, you know, the increase of loneliness, not as a result of AI or anything like that, but just in the times we're in right and it and and it's. There's a balance. I isn't there Because what you're working with is not there to replace a human. It's there to assist a human, and I think that's a very important message to music creators.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely. I think, like I said, you know, I think no technology can replace the way in which we get creative as humans. You know, absolutely, like I said, it's there to help. But, you know, dr Joe Leske invented Darcy many years ago as a film composer, and this is where the whole ideas behind Darcy came from, were Joe's inventions. And back in those times, you times, you know, he basically all the jobs would come in at once and he would kind of get stuck sometimes in in creativity, and he just wanted to create tools that would just, you know, empower him but never replace him. And that's 30 plus years ago. That's exactly what we're still doing today.
Speaker 2:Um, you know, I think, why not use a tool that can speed things up? Why not use a tool that can make room, then, for you to go and do some of the parts that you really enjoy? Why not use a tool that can even get you to collaborate with people in new ways? Um, you know, why not use those tools? I think it's really exciting. As musicians we are technologists we always have had to adapt to new technology. Icai has just been another new technology that can help us or open up new avenues, new doors, new genres, maybe new genres of music.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, good point.
Speaker 1:I think there's another thing as well that it really kind of helps composers to achieve, and that is to focus on the actual compositional bones.
Speaker 1:Because one of the things that maybe sometimes kind of slows down composers to not complete projects is the fact that everything can be done at once on the fly. And I often like to encourage people to say, actually, let's split the process into composition and separate that from into composition and separate that from sound design and separate that from mixing. And yes, I know we can do all of those things on the fly at the same time, and isn't that wonderful? Well, not always, because it slows people down. So if, for example, using tools, uh, that use, you know, generative midi and stuff to be able to go right, let me get my composition there and let's not think at all about the mix and let's not think at all about the sound design, and actually they can be other people that do that. Once the composition is there in kind of MIDI form, it's there that these tools really kick in and elevate a song to an arrangement of a song to the next level and elevate a song to and an arrangement of a song to the next level.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. You know, sometimes I can. For me, the way that I write music, I write my lyrics and I write my sorry, my melody, and then I write my lyrics and I've got all. You know, even though I'm a pianist, I still to this day struggle to translate what's in my head outwards so I can hear it, but I just can't sometimes just get there.
Speaker 2:And I think some of these tools that are out there, you know, are I mean, they're just incredible in terms of being able to help you express or maybe get there a little bit quicker in what's going on in your head and how you're feeling about that piece of music and, um, and I think, yeah, just just what you said. You know, also, in that compositional process, some of these tools, like we've talked about, kind of take away some of the, the parts that you maybe you don't enjoy, or take ages to then give you a bit of breathing space as a composer to think, right, where does this need to go next? Can I just sit with this for a while and think, right, where, what, what I want to express next, without having to worry about you know, programming hi-hats endlessly, do you know what I mean?
Speaker 2:yeah so I think, uh, again, that's where these tools come into their own and, um, you know, at no part is the human call out of that. Um, it's just your co-pilot, it's. It's kind of like you're, you know, your session drummer in the room with you here. You're given the groove too, and they're improvising around your groove, but it's your groove that's the thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly that. So the ownership, um, and the accountability is still and always has been and always will be with the composer as it should be, yeah yeah, yeah, now that makes that makes perfect sense.
Speaker 1:Okay, it's good, because I think sometimes the that this whole subject can be, you know now by that I'm talking about the, the role of ai in music creation. It can be wildly misunderstood, um to a point where it kind of grabs clickbaity kind of headlines on the internet and social media memes and people that kind of perhaps maybe get overly offended by its invention, and it could be argued that in many ways actually, the idea of probability and MIDI and randomizers there's nothing new about that, that's been around for a while, but how it's used inside of people's cognition and inside their workflow has changed. But it can kind of grab the wrong type of headlines because it can be kind of mixed in with um, I don't know, stealing someone's voice or something like that, which kind of gets thrown under the, the ai bus somehow. And it's not the same thing at all as to what we're talking about here, because what you're doing is, you know, is ethically sourced. It came out, came out of a university um research project, didn't it?
Speaker 2:it was dr joe lisk.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all of this was his, his brainchild, and it's, you know, 30 plus years of research, um, 79 patents later, um, but you know, and he is a, he's a film composer, that's his, that's his background, um, so you know he, the whole invention has composers at its heart and artists at its heart, um, but you're right, I think AI is such a broad term as well. It's deeply misunderstood. I mean, some of the big tech firms who are there creating some of this tech and I'm not talking in the music industry, but in other. You know, some of these platforms that are out there. They don't understand it fully either. It's fascinating in terms of where it's going to go. It can be deeply scary. It can be deeply scary. It can be deeply exciting for some.
Speaker 2:I think when it applies to music, I think it does. You know, it kind of all gets sort of lumped together in terms of some of the scary stuff that is going on in terms of AI, music. And there are scaries out there, like we talked about. You know, the companies that are training illegally on people's life's work. You know, without permission, no compensation, artists are there and competing with the output which sounds very much like them. You know, and we've all had to go on those sort of tools. I'm not going to name names but I would say you know, gimmicky maybe All right the first time you use it, but it's not how you make music, it's not, it's not music making. So you know, I think those, those companies, absolutely, we need to stay ahead of the landscape. We need to back organizations who absolutely want to protect artists. Again, I always say to students understand what's going on, but understand the tools that you're using. Make sure they are ethical, make sure you know none of your data is getting scraped. Know what you're using and if it's, if it's a good tool, it's ethical and it's, yeah, speeding up parts of the process for you that you, you wanted to brilliant, um, but understand what's going on and and stay ahead of the curve and all of this.
Speaker 2:I think there's a bit of a, you know, I think this is what excites me about the work we do at darcy is, you know, on one side, you have artists and composers who, um, who you know they want and they should get paid if they, if they, opt into any of these systems, and then on the other side, you've got people who perhaps are non-musicians, who are using some of these other tools out there that are training illegally to maybe, like you know, make a couple of tracks for their kid's birthday party, and there's there's sort of a big gap of like nothing bridging the gap.
Speaker 2:Um, again, because of the way that we've um, we've taught, because I'll start again again because of the way that we have taught a system and because we can trace from input to output, it kind of connects the dots in terms of rights holders get paid and compensated, um, and people are able to, you know, make brand new music that is their own, but everybody in the process there's fair attribution, um, and you get to create your own track as opposed to, like you know, make it a track that feels unethical because you know that it's been. Um, you know somebody's work is getting scraped. Hope that made sense.
Speaker 2:but anyhow I think the point is, yeah, I think everything gets lumped into into one big ai pool, um, but of course there's lots of different things going on within the ai space. So, yeah, I said, you know, I said to students and and all alike just stay ahead of the curve, understand what's going on. As much as you can listen to podcasts such as this johnny uh another podcast that kind of teach you about this stuff. Even you know, even some of the podcasts that are out there are very technical and they're not about AI music, they're just about AI. And you know, I'm certainly not a software engineer. Some of that's gone way above my head, but I listen to some of them anyhow because you know, I think it's really important to keep up to speed on AI and all things AI in any industry. You know your chat, gpts and your pods and I think those sort of everybody's using these tools now.
Speaker 2:Yeah and I think those, those sort of you know, everybody's using these tools now, yeah, and I think if you, if you know how to use these platforms well, again it can just help you yeah, and and there is a way right of using things like chat, gpt, for example.
Speaker 1:You know you can't you. You there's a respect that you know, like when a human talks to a human and we have like, hopefully, like good manners and and like you don't need to do that with with AI, which I find really difficult, by the way, because I put like please, in my questions.
Speaker 2:Well, there's all those memes on the internet of you know, like, um, this is what happens. You know if, if I didn't say thank you and please to chat GPT, and you know, when AI takes over the world, I'll be the first to go. You know, I mean, come on, it is ridiculous, but I know what you mean. On the way a human speaks or the mannerisms that we have and, um, you know it's, it's certainly in the advancement in that, in that sort of technology is astounding in the last few years. It truly is. You know, you think about chat gbt up until a few years ago. You know like what was it? And suddenly now everybody's using chat gbt or claude or one of the other.
Speaker 1:You know platforms yeah, it's everywhere it, it really, it really is, and um, it's in in in things that you would even least expect it to be. You know it's now. It's now recognized as a form of Harvard referencing for essays, for example, but the prompt is what you would reference inside of an essay, right, which you know it's like wow, imagine that a few years ago.
Speaker 2:I know, but you never could have imagined. No, you know, back when I was a child it was like the good old Amstrad Right and the dial-up connection for the internet. Oh God yeah, and you couldn't use the house line phone and the internet at the same time. So you know my mum would have to kick me off the computer because she wanted to make a phone call.
Speaker 1:Yeah, do you know. In some ways, it wasn't that long ago, was it? Is there anybody listening to this right now, by the way, that thinks what's dial-up? Don't worry, guys, you're not missing anything isn't that right, amore?
Speaker 2:absolutely not. Thank goodness those days are gone it was weird.
Speaker 1:It came with a weird noise. Yeah, like it was like it, like it, you know, like like a spectrum tape cassette loading up. It was that kind of sound. It was awful, um, but you know, so things have moved on, that's that's for sure. Speaking of which and is there anything that you know as a final question to you really is really about kind of what changes you think might be ahead of us in this area of music?
Speaker 2:I think, like I said, done in the right way, I think it could be incredibly exciting for our industry and I think you know it can offer powerful assistive tools for, for the music making journey, um, but also when it comes to things like music education, um, you know, embracing some of this new technology, um will, I think, help how we learn music, how we engage with music, uh, perhaps give people access to music who normally wouldn't have. Um, you know, schools in particular, I mean, there's a lot of schools who are just so underfunded and perhaps can't afford fancy setups. But having things, for example, like this app or other tools that are out there in the palm of your hand on a device to get people going, it doesn't replace music theory or learn an instrument Absolutely not. All those things are still important but just given tools that are giving people an opportunity, a chance to get creative, even if they don't go on to be a musician, tools that are giving people an opportunity, a chance to get creative, even if they don't go on to be a musician. It's, you know, the impact on cognitive function. Being creative, as we know, has such a huge impact, um, and I think we need to, I know, certainly this year, I think the government are going to be looking at the um, at the creative arts in general across education and hopefully there's a bit more funding pushed towards all of the creative arts because it's so important, creativity is so important on brain functioning, so I think these tools maybe we'll see maybe more affordable and will give people more access as well.
Speaker 2:And then, of course, collaboration like we talked about the opportunity to collaborate with people from across the world. Again, what new genres might come up out of that? What new types of music? That to me is really exciting. New genres might come up out of that. What new types of music? That to me, is really exciting. But also things like um discovery and audience building for, you know, independent artists, um helping them to market as well, um their brand, uh tools to understand their audience better. Um, you know, I think there's so many exciting things that these tools can do for this industry.
Speaker 1:Good point, that's a very good point. Yeah, that's. That's something which I think a lot of you know emerging artists really struggle with. Like you know who is my audience, like I can look at my streaming data and try and get an understanding of that. But, like if AI could be used on a predictive level and we know it can for various other things if that could be used, that's an interesting one. Okay, um, watch this space, watch this space. Yeah, wow. Um, anne-marie, thank you so much. You are such a brilliant, brilliant lady. And thank you, johnny, you're so good at what you do and you, you, I really appreciate your time here today. You know you've given a lot of insight, a lot of use and I think there'll be a lot of people very grateful. So, on behalf of the, the silent majority, thank you you're very welcome.
Speaker 2:It's so lovely to be on today, johnny.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much ah, brilliant lady, brilliant company. Uh, really enjoyed that conversation. Um, it's so interesting, isn't it? To kind of uh, you know, hear, hear different perspectives on this subject, because I think AI in general gets a kind of a lot of bad press, and rightly so, for in some cases, but most definitely not in this case, everything about Darcy is pure and it comes from a long line of research that has a great deal of integrity. You know, I know AI feels like a hot right now kind of subject and it will cool down and people will stop talking about it and it will become integrated into our new ways and all the rest of it. But Darcy comes from 30 years of research, long before people were even talking in the mainstream agenda about AI Fascinating. Walking in the mainstream agenda about AI Fascinating.
Speaker 1:The app, by the way, the Whistle app. I tested it out because I wanted to be organised right and see what was going on with it and it's brilliant to you know. I think Anne-Marie said that. You know, a lot of the Darcy brain has been kind of inputted into it and that's a great way of putting it, because I tested it out and I thought it was absolutely brilliant. It's still in kind of beta testing. It's the one that Anne-Marie alluded to in in the interview. In fact, I'm going to put a link to it in the description for this episode. So if you want to test it out and offer some feedback on it, I think it would be greatly appreciated from Darcy. So, yeah, there you go. Thank you for for being here. I hope you've learned a thing or two there from listening to Anne-Marie and her wonderful insight into where this subject sits. Okay, I will wish you well have have a great day Until next time. May the force be with you.
