Artificial Intelligence? AI? Not here. Drummer intelligence only at NSMD. I regard AI as plagiarism for the creatively impaired and will probably never use it. Noam Chomsky said Chat GPT is a “high tech plagiarism tool”. And he’s right! I tried it once. I asked Chat GPT to write an article about the history and features of the Ludwig LM400 Supraphonic snare drum. It produced a very factual article about it, but it plagiarized several authors, one of them being ME in an article I had written for Not So Modern Drummer! Almost word for word it picked up my sentences and paragraphs from the internet and vomited it back at me in a very generic and sterile fashion.
I’ve been besieged more and more by “writers” wanting to contribute guest articles or editorials on ANY subject for FREE and all they want is a link to a gambling site or some other bs site. Riiiight. I actually said yes to one of these clowns and, sure enough they whipped out 400 words on a drumming subject in under an hour! Obviously AI. Obviously I turned it down. I have recently started toying with them by asking them so send me a video of themselves playing drums in 7/8 time. I realize that there are probably very legitimate uses of AI programs that may, I say MAY, make life easier for some. But I prefer the hard work of creativity. Write your own words, write your own music and play your own music. I’m somewhat of a Luddite when it comes to the latest technology. I don’t use it until I absolutely have to. I balked at using text for years until my teenage daughter wouldn’t answer phone calls, but she would respond to my texts. Now I rely on text in running the different facets of my music career.
I’m old school and proud of it. I have yet to use an ipad for charts, and I chart EVERYTHING. I still use pencil and paper unless I can find an accurate online chart of a cover song I’m learning and need to print it off real quick. There’s something about the visceral experience of pen or pencil on paper that helps me retain music information. Plus, I don’t have to worry about my notebook of charts blinking out due to an electric or electronic problem. Is it slower? Yes, it’s slower. Good and slow!
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My latest musical adventures: I played with a band playing all Tom Petty music last week at a small festival I organized. It’s not a tribute band; we look nothing like Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and we don’t play the songs note for note. We are looking at booking the band, Hard Promises, into some clubs and small theaters soon. It’s a lot of fun and I get to play the drum tracks by some of my favorite drummers, Stan Lynch, Steve Ferrone, and Ringo. And the band sounds great! Gene Micofsky, Wes Garner and Andy Wilhite all live in my immediate neighborhood so it feels a lot like my neighborhood garage bands in my teen years. I’m reliving my youth!