This month’s column in our AI series is by Local 802 member Gene Perla, who serves on the Local 802 AI Advisory Committee. For more information on our campaign, see Local 802’s AI resource page. I also encourage you to take a look at Harvey Mars’ column in this issue as well as Rep. Adam Schiff’s Generative A.I. Copyright Disclosure Act. If you have questions about the Local 802 AI committee, please e-mail me.

I also want to share that I’ve agreed to join the advisory board of the Responsible AI Network. RAIN is a research coordination network involving academics, practitioners, domain experts, entrepreneurs, media and civic society organizations. 

— Bill Meade, chair of Local 802’s AI Advisory Committee

By Gene Perla

During rehearsals, as part of the sound design team for “City of Angels” at the Virginia Theatre, the director called a meeting of the various heads of design to join him for a discussion at house right. This being my first “big” show, I was astounded that neither sound co-designer moved to join the gathering. I prodded them but was told since there was no Tony Award for sound, they were not invited. What? Well, there now exists a Tony Award for sound, but back then…

Things change and we don’t always know how something we do or know now will be viewed a year or a decade from now. Which leads me to AI. Will something in the future occur that tames the fear? Would that something be solid AI language across all AFM contracts? Local 802 has dozens of contracts with users of our music and each of these contracts needs constant re-negotiating. And it’s a fact that we’re finding our way to better outcomes via these agreements.  Can AI be part of those better outcomes? And how will we know we have the “right” language? These are all questions whose answers will be important to consider in the coming years.

One way to think about AI, as an example, is to take a topic you want to research. Reaching out to an “expert” for input would be a start, but reaching out to other experts would most likely broaden the resultant data. If you reached out to all the cognoscenti you could find, you’d have enough “stuff” to create various “versions” of the original subject/issue, but here’s the rub.

If you wanted to use another’s data legally, you’d need to secure permission to use that data. Not doing so could get you in trouble with copyright and the lawyers who provide protection.

How would you feel if you became aware of a work that contains your music and is generating financial income — but you aren’t sharing in that income? AI developers are collecting “all” the music ever recorded that exists in myriad locations and formats and recombining them into “new” works.  Musicians are upset with the concept of others using their persona, sound output, compositions, previously issued recordings (audio and video), and other aspects of their creative expression without securing permission. And permission, when granted, requires compensation in some form.

Before music technology completely changed the landscape, instrumentalists could make big money as session players. During my tenure with Elvin Jones, I asked bandmate and multi-instrumentalist Joe Farrell how he was doing. He responded by saying that he had made a quarter of a million dollars the previous year as a session musician because he was an extensive doubler, playing all the flutes, all the saxophones and all the double reeds. The Brecker Brothers were able to turn their recording skills into a financial powerhouse, allowing them to start a jazz club in Manhattan. Then MIDI hit.

In some cases, there are technological plusses and minuses, but MIDI for me was a boon by allowing me to expand my musical output. I could now hear my big band arrangements in close approximation to the ultimate results of live people playing the parts. Precision is what computers do, but the minute differences of human delivery give us what Christian McBride calls “grease.” I’ve noted differences between the live orchestras on Broadway shows vs. the recorded music soundtracks of Hollywood films. There’s definitely New York grease on the Great White Way. Experimentations, guesses, failures, and successes are the tools of learning the human way. With the arrival of MIDI technology, we had a new tool.

What I’m getting at is this: the advent of MIDI hurt some of our industry, but it allowed me to compose better and thus create better live music. It was a tool that made my art better. So now I ask this big question: despite its risks, can AI be another propitious launch toward musical creativity?

For ten years, I partnered with keyboardist Jan Hammer in our in-the-country Red Gate Studio, where we produced records by Jeff Beck, Nina Simone, Elvin Jones, Steve Grossman, David Liebman and others. Periodically, Jan was visited by Robert Moog and Tom Oberheim, who presented their wares-in-development for him to evaluate and comment upon. I also witnessed various devices being used by Todd Rundgren, who was referred to as The Wizard, including the Bode Frequency Shifter, which he called a “cuckely box.” Innovation is a human expression that leads to further life enhancement.

At one meeting called by executives of a major label, an under-contract pianist said that the introduction of digital samples were “nothing to worry about” and that they couldn’t supplant the sounds of “real” instruments. Ha-ha! What a joke. Miroslav Vitouš blew that concept wide open with his orchestra samples library. Musicians are constantly developing and experimenting nonstop with anything and everything.

In other words, AI is here to stay and it’s up to us to try to control the beast.

But AI is also a moving target as companies and governments utilizing the technology are mammoth and appear unstoppable. Much of what’s being created is and will continue to benefit humanity, but for musicians, the usage of our output that blindly employs our creations without acknowledgment, without requesting usage, without paying us for that use, should be unacceptable. It must stop.

What can we do about it? What we’ve done time after time: come together. We’re a union, a group of people concerned with the protection and support of each other and what we do. Together we have established a united front to confront those who have been and are continuing to use our creations until we get them to stop. Not an easy task, but just as it’s difficult to master a violin or saxophone, we can and will succeed.

Let’s unite nationally and internationally with the many groups that are working toward shaping our industry’s future: Music Workers Alliance, Indie Musicians Caucus, Artist Rights Alliance, Austin Texas Musicians,  Independent Musicians Alliance, and Music Oregon, to name just a few. And let’s help our union leaders to support them in arriving at the proper conclusions. Jump on board with us. If we don’t do it, who will?

Gene Perla has been a member of Local 802 since 1967. He has an extensive background in the music industry, which you can read at https://www.perla.org/. He was profiled in Allegro in 2020 by Todd Bryant Weeks, and serves as a union steward in the New School Jazz Department, where he helped musicians win their latest union contract. He serves on the Local 802 AI Advisory Committee.

MORE ARTICLES IN THIS SERIES:

Unleashing Creativity

“How are you going to stop AI from stealing our jobs?”