A musician and music teacher’s perspective
Artificial intelligence is now writing songs, generating lyrics, producing tracks, and mimicking the sound of real artists in seconds. For some, AI in music feels exciting. For others, it feels like a genuine threat.
As a songwriter, performer, and music educator with over twenty years of experience, I sit right in the middle of this conversation. That is where it belongs.
The reality of AI in music is far more nuanced than the headlines suggest.
What AI Is Good At in Music
AI excels at recognising patterns. When trained on large amounts of data, it can:
• Generate chord progressions
• Suggest melodies and harmonies
• Mimic musical genres and styles
• Create background or functional music
• Offer songwriting prompts and practice tools
For hobbyists, content creators, and musicians looking for inspiration or efficiency, AI can be useful. I use it myself in supportive ways.
But this is where the conversation needs balance.
What AI Cannot Replace
AI cannot:
• Feel emotion
• Experience growth or failure
• Perform live
• React to other musicians in real time
• Build confidence in a nervous student
• Connect with an audience in a room
Some of the most powerful music ever written came from imperfection, not optimisation. AI can imitate style, but it cannot create meaning.
Music is not just sound. It is lived experience, emotion, and human connection.
AI, Royalties, and the Value of Music
Music has always worked on a simple principle.
If you create it, you are rewarded for it.
AI complicates this model.
Important questions remain unanswered:
• Who owns AI generated music
• Who earns royalties from it
• What happens when AI is trained on human music without consent or payment
If musicians’ work is used to train systems that replace them without permission or compensation, that is not innovation. It is extraction.
Without fair reward, musicians lose the ability to build sustainable careers, invest in their craft, and pass skills on to the next generation.
The Real Risk of AI in Music
The greatest risk is not that AI will write better songs.
It is that original human music becomes devalued.
When music becomes something that can be generated instantly, we risk:
• Discouraging young people from learning instruments
• Undermining years of training and discipline
• Replacing lived experience with convenience
Once value is lost, it is extremely difficult to restore.
Why Music Education Matters More Than Ever
At MD Music, we do not just teach notes and chords.
We teach:
• Discipline
• Confidence
• Listening skills
• Collaboration
• Emotional expression
• Creative problem solving
These are deeply human skills. No algorithm can replicate them.
In a world increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence, real musicianship becomes more valuable, not less.
My Position on AI in Music
AI is not the enemy.
But it should not be the artist.
Used responsibly, AI can support musicians with learning, organisation, ideas, and efficiency. It should never replace the human voice, the human story, or fair reward.
Music at its best is human, flawed, emotional, and alive.
That is worth protecting.
Mike Donaghy
MD Music
