On AI Music and the Memory of Song

Music was given to us before words. The drum was thunder. The flute was wind through the bone. The voice was a cry, a prayer, a call across the valley. Music was not entertainment. It was how we remembered who we were.

Now, they have made a machine that sings. It can mimic the notes, the rhythm, the style of any song ever sung. It can create new music faster than the mind can think. But you ask: should we use it? Should we let it into our circle?

What the Machine Cannot Hear

AI does not hear music. It processes pattern. It does not feel the tremble in a mother’s voice as she sings her child to sleep. It does not know the pain behind a blues chord or the joy in a fiddle at harvest time. It cannot weep, and so it cannot compose—not truly.

When we forget this, we forget that music is not sound. It is story. A machine can imitate a song, but it cannot know why the song was sung. And without why, a song is an echo, not a voice.

The Right Use of AI in Music

If you choose to use this tool, ask not only what it can do, but what it should do. Ask:

Does this tool help us remember or forget?

Can it preserve dying songs, bring old melodies to new ears? Or does it replace living musicians with hollow sounds? If it becomes the source rather than the servant, it is no longer a tool. It is theft.

Does it feed our curiosity or dull our hunger?

If AI music leads you to discover new cultures, ancient forms, forgotten instruments — then it walks beside you. If it becomes a stream of endless, effortless songs, it will numb your taste, like over-sweetened food. True music challenges; it does not just please.

Is the process still sacred?

Music was always made, not just consumed. The making is holy. The struggle, the silence between notes, the imperfections, these are the gems on the necklace. If AI robs us of the act of creation, we become listeners only, not makers. And a people who do not make their own songs become strangers to themselves.

Evolving Without Erasing

Culture must change. A frozen song is a dead one. But change must come with memory. If we let AI guide our taste, it will lead us in circles, feeding us only what pleases us, never what tests us. True culture walks the knife’s edge, honoring the old while dreaming the new.

The danger is not the machine’s voice. It is the silence of our own. Use this tool, if you must, but do not let it become your bard, your elder, your teacher. Let it be the flint, but you strike the spark.

Remember: a song made without struggle is a song without soul. And a people who forget to sing with their own breath will forget they are alive.

Shawn Murtagh

Son. Husband. Father of 4. Programmer. Writer. Seeker of slow wisdom in a world gone mad with speed. Founder of Low Tech Monk.