AI? – D Geoffrey Bell – Composer of Choral and Instrumental Music

My Music
I’m a classically trained composer with many years of experience as a performer on stage and in the studio. I write 100% of the music for my compositions and arrangements. I write my own lyrics, apart from select pieces of poetry that I have set to music.

The Instrumentation
The majority of my classical and choral music is written for traditional instruments and performers. I post real recordings of real musicians performing my music whenever I have those recordings. If I don’t have a real recording, I post computer-generated performances as placeholders until a real recording is available.

I use a variety of synthesizer sounds for pop/rock/jazz/ music. The performances are played and/or programmed by me.

Digitized Instruments and Voices
When I create the first computer-generated demo tracks, I use digitized instruments and voices from established software libraries. The software libraries hire real musicians to sing or play their instruments, and their performances are “sampled”, (recorded in digital format). The computer software is sophisticated enough to play renditions of new music using the sounds that were sampled, blending and phrasing them together. Some software now uses AI (artificial intelligence) to create new instruments or voices that are based on the sampled instruments and voices.

I don’t use AI to create any of my music. Some AI-generated instruments and voices are used to make the temporary demo tracks until a real recording is available. If your choir or ensemble has recorded one of my pieces of music, I would be happy to post it!

Cover Art
I prefer to use photos taken by human photographers or art created by real artists for the covers of my music. I contact the artist or photographer to get their permission, and give credit for their work whenever this is possible. I have used AI to create a couple of covers for specific pieces and for my webinar series, and this is clearly indicated in the credits.