On Craft, Process, and Networks

If you’re making music and are concerned your creative efforts are being buried in an avalanche of rote AI-produced and AI-promoted competition, the bad news is you’re not wrong. My inbox — and as someone who writes about music, I’m not alone in this — is full of stuff that strives to be taken seriously, but whether it’s bland press releases or even blander unconsidered automated music, it is taxing, and getting through it all takes time, and doing so is dispiriting. Perhaps worst of all, the ongoing avalanche casts doubt about other, more ambiguous but equally unfamiliar things in my inbox, such as your music. The good news is there are some things you, as a musician, can begin to do to address the problem. Here are two that I find myself thinking about: The first is don’t let anyone or anything, or anything acting like anyone, or anyone promoting anything, convince you that craft is outdated or will ever be outdated; you will only improve, only make the sounds you imagine in your…