The A.I. Revolution in Music Education
The times they are a changin’
Classical Guitar Corner was founded in 2010, which was a time that saw the rise of YouTube,“pro-sumer” recording gear, and easy website development. Starting out in the early stages of online education meant that CGC could ride a new wave with few other websites around and we gathered initial momentum that can be hard to get these days.
There is another wave building right now, the emergence of A.I. technology. What does it mean for online education or music education in general?
Information Age
Depending on your age, you might remember having to wait on a music book to be delivered from overseas, or perhaps you traveled across the globe to see what a virtuoso performer had to say in a masterclass. Some musicians you only ever knew by reputation and at best had a CD recording of their work. These days all of that has been made immediately accessible through the internet. Though this process, information became less valuable.
Information used to be held in particular editions, institutions, or in the minds of specific teachers and they became well known because of it. These days, however, the internet offers us all the riches of the largest, most robust music festival we could ever imagine, albeit with a fair amount of noise to cut through. Information has been freed from from its silos, so much so that the bigger challenge these days is to find information that is organised, structured, and curated. This is what CGC has excelled at over the past decade and something that I continually work on to refine.
What happens, then, when an ai learning model is pointed towards my curriculum, other methods, and the vast array of hive-mind knowledge that is around the internet? In my best guess, curation will become less valuable too.
How AI might affect music education
Right now, if I ask ChatGPT what a good selection of beginner pieces might be to learn classical guitar it spits out things like Romanza, Lagrima, Bouree in e minor, and perhaps a Sor study or two. Because it has been taught with common knowledge of the internet it comes back with common mistakes like these. As any player or teacher who knows these pieces will attest, these are definitely not beginner pieces.
However, with more exploration it becomes evident that when ChatGPT is asked to build a learning path, model a classical guitar curriculum, or offer some exercises to deal with a particular technical problem it is quite capable of getting in the ball park. This has been, up till now, one of the main value propositions of music teachers.
The Sigmoid Growth Curve
I have never been one to push back on technology advances because once the cat is out of the bag, shaking your fist at the digital world it fairly futile. The fact that these A.I. large language models have been unleashed on copyright material and subsequently synthesised and regurgitated by a bot can feel somewhat unjust. However, haven’t we been doing this as teachers and students all along?
When a new technology like this comes along we find ourselves on a sigmoid growth curve (an S shaped graph). The slow start is flat and long, like the last ten years of A.I. development. As the technology explodes into the mainstream it creates the ascending slope of the S shape and eventually it will level off. The problem is, when we are on this S curve we never know where we are at any given point in time. We could be just at the beginning of this revolution or it might, in fact, be over. Only time will tell.
The Human Connection
What I do know is this: I am 24 hours away from getting on the road with colleagues and friends to run the CGC Summer School. We gather with around 80 guitarists from all over the world to make music together, teach and learn, share our common passion for the classical guitar, and continue to revel in the vibrations of a beautifully crafted wooden box on our torso. It is something that A.I. will likely never get close to replicating.
The value and need for human connection has never been more obvious than after the last few strange years. At CGC we have always taken care of our members and enjoy a thriving sense of community in person and online. As a leader I will look for ways to leverage the new technology to help us learn and enjoy our music making but I will also be embracing community and human connection more than ever before.
See you soon, be it digitally or on the stage!
Simon
– As always, I welcome your contribution in the comments below.
A. I. Yes, A.I. has no passion, no fellow feeling connected with what it produces. It’s simply almost like a politician; blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. CGC summer school! I could never be there and you just broke my heart.
Love you guys thank you for everything that you have done for me. I’m a better player today because of you.
In general ChatGPT can’t determine if an answer harvested from the internet is correct, moral or true. In fact, it often makes up incorrect answers, references and sources. User beware and double check before trusting. To prove this, ask GPT to write a sentence or a line. Then ask GPT if it wrote same sentence. It will usually respond “no”. This is fascinating technology for sure but beware.
Ha. I asked it for intermediate level guitar pieces with modernist tendencies, and it produced things like “Nocturnal after John Dowland” by Britten, and Suite Compostelana, by Mompou. It also included a Takemitsu piece for violin and piano. I guess it’s sort of fun correcting an AI.
One of the best things about having a teacher is that it puts you in contact with other students, presents performance opportunities,, etc. An AI will not be able to do that.
At this point, AI reminds me a bit of the VAERS database. Scientists can make good use of its contents because they know how to filter out the garbage. Others, not so much. The internet has forced us all to become better garbage filters or suffer the consequences.
Generative AI based on factoids from the internet at large. Hmmm….
But you have several years of insightful, non-judgmental and sage advice in CGCA. So, could you “train” chatgpt on that restricted set of data, or other serious blogs and thereby create a knowledge base that is extremely useful? Even more so if it is human-edited and catalogued, although this takes volunteer time (e. g., like Wikipedia).
In general, I think AI at this time is just a tool for locating potential sources of information, and after that you have to use your own head to sift it out.
Interesting discussion-thanks!
Simon,
How apropos! As the whole world seems to be convulsing about Chat-GPT, I wonder if AI will ever become good enough to replace the “human element” that ultimately defines our experience (with a guitar teacher or with a physician). Interesting times indeed!
Hey simon I not joined yet as I’m always totally broke I am a street performer but I have really respected what you do my teacher went to GIT all the way from Perth Western Australia his decision to go to LA instead of opening a furniture polishing business changed so many life’s for the better. He taught me to teach as well and make connections for students that have done great stuff from Melbourne uni Jazz with Honners ,world touring death metal working with one student on be bob jazz piano he Han no one to hang out with and talk about music in the remote regional area he know in Box hill music and loving it and making friends playing gigs you work is like Sharman healing connecting we keep working while the world is totally distracted attention stolen second by second. Don’t panic do what you do keep being awesome one day when I get it together I hope to join your school love you man be brave keep rocking Philip Connell AKA Hopeless pony
A.I. is a bill of goods being sold to people as something wonderful but will ultimately, and unfortunately, end up being the bigest propagander producer the world has ever known. A.I. is a computer system with algorithms designed by “humans,” so the human element is always present. Unfortunately, there will be those who exploit the negatives and take what could be a good thing and use it for evil. The main purpose of much of what we see happening today is to gain control, and if you control information to the masses, you can program them with propaganda. Many people have come to trust information from certain sources like doctors, clergy, etc., even what is fed through the internet. So it isn’t a far stretch to see them “trusting” what is fed to them through A.I. The human element will never be replaced, especially if you are the social type, but beware, A.I. is not what it is touted to be. Just my $.02, maybe $.03.
I studies AI in the 70s. At that time computers could play checkers, and maybe beginners chess. We speculated about Go (Weichi, Baduk), but being compared to 5 simultaneous chess matches, figured it would now be solved in our lifetimes. Wrong! A few years ago computers started playing professional level Go. Then real change has been in hardware, faster machines with more memory. The phone I hold in my hand has more computing power than room sized computers of the 70s.
So give it time. It will get there.
Great article. AI is not going away, and we need to be aware of their pros and cons, as well as whatever part of our jobs will be replaced by it. I think musicians tend to think that our jobs are “creative” and therefore too “human” to be disrupted, but AI is capable of more than just researching information. Machine learning is already allowing AI to, for instance, compose music well enough that composers who rely on formulae to produce large amounts of commercial music can be put at risk.
Later, although this is more speculative, it could analyse recording data or videos of performances and therefore teach things like interpretation or technique. It could certainly analyse and learn all the traditional pieces of the repertoire, and once it does that well enough, will be able to teach the styles of composers and periods very well. For instance, you could ask generative AI to “compose a symphony in the style of Haydn” or “write a guitar piece in the style of Barrios”.
I don’t think artists are yet grasping the real capabilities of AI. As you mentioned, this is an information revolution where much human knowledge will be part of a sharing economy rather than holding onto proprietary information. The educators and teachers will need to know how to respond to the different applications of AI. I think teachers will be held to a higher standard of knowledge and wisdom (which is only a good thing in the long term).
As one discusses the foibles of AI, an example of what could go wrong appears. My previous post should read, “I studied AI …” and “The real change has been …”
Yes, the autocorrect feature on many text editors is a form of AI.
In one episode of star trek tng Data is playing a classical guitar. He will be able to play flawlessly, no mistakes, but he will never come up with his own ideas on musicality. AI will be the same, it may process hundreds of records on a pieces and play them back but it will never be able to put its own feelings into a piece.
A.I. For music… augmented reality…
it’s not that it’s not cool, but it has no power in the domain of live performance.
many already experience the soul missing because they perform with “back tracks” – but there is no room for improvisation or soul. they could be great performances, don’t get me wrong, but they simply do not convey the same stuff.
The cat is out of the bag for sure and AI is going to change teaching in every discipline. I look forward to AI that can help me plan my practice and coach me in preparing for exams or performances, but I don’t think it will ever be able to encourage, challenge, model and surprise the way a human teacher can, nor of course participate in the liveness of live music … even if it develops as a contributor there. Interesting times.
I enjoyed your thoughts and insights on AI Simon.
As you said, you can’t replicate a one-on-one human experience,
so wishing all who are lucky enough to attend a fabulous summer camp!
I shake my fist at Reddit users for saying those are beginner pieces all the time…….
Hi Karen, thanks for your comment. It’s a common misconception about those pieces, but do keep in mind that many teachers from past generations didn’t take a strictly progressive approach to teaching, similar to the now prevalent Grades system in so many countries. Many strides have been made to correct some of that, however. Best wishes.
Peace,
Dave B (CGC team)