How Musicians Can (and Should) Use AI-According to Berklee Experts At Berklee's first AI and Music Innovation event, artists and educators explored how artificial intelligence is reshaping creativity and artistic responsibility-and what today's musicians need to know.
By
John Mirisola
May 29, 2025
Illustration by Vanessa Rossi
Its no wonder the first event in Berklees AI and Music Innovation Series was packed to the doors. For the students and faculty in attendance, all current and future music industry leaders, the stakes could not be higher-professionally, ethically, artistically. A year ago a large language model (LLM) couldnt tell you how many Rs are in the word strawberry and were scoring in the 60s on standard IQ tests. Now AI tools for musicians can write you ten versions of a song, generate the audio in ten different styles, master the audio, and write the press release, all with a few plain language prompts.
Its a complicated, mixed bag of truly existential changes-negative threats and positive opportunities, said Berklee President Jim Lucchese, introducing the new speaker series, which will take place monthly beginning this fall. Its really critical for everybody here . . . to all be as well informed in a very fast moving space as possible.
Yet contrary to the fear and pessimism that sometimes overshadows conversations about artificial intelligence and the arts, these 90 minutes were filled with the curiosity and pragmatic optimism of professional artists whove always found new ways to create with cutting edge tools.
For the folks in this room, said Lucchese, its about understanding things well enough to focus on and create those positive opportunities.
The panel, moderated by Chris Wares, interim chair of the Music Business/Management Department, included Ben Camp, associate professor of songwriting; Lori Landay, professor of cultural studies; Jennifer Hruska, assistant chair of the Electronic Production and Design Department; and Jonathan Wyner, professor of music production and engineering. Among the panelists, no single viewpoint dominated. No one-AI-fits-all approach emerged. Instead, each speaker shared their own experiences teaching and creating with artificial intelligence tools, and invited the audience to define their own approach, guided by judgment, ethics, and personal taste.
Here are some of the conversations key takeaways:
Your Taste Is EverythingMuch of the conversation revolved around the importance of artists guiding the creative process when working with AI.
We've crossed a threshold where no creative task feels safely out of AI's reach. Humans are already collaborating-and competing-with machine-generated content across every medium. So what do we carbon-based creators still bring to the table? Well, we know what we want. And we know what we like.
Artistry in the Algorithms: Music in the Age of AI
Berklee alumni and professors speak to Berklee Today about the promise and peril of making music with AI.
Camp described using a large language model to churn through dozens of lyric variations, refining and reshaping them based on their own instincts through generation after generation of prompts. The reason I'm able to navigate these things so quickly is because I know what I want, they said.
Wares illustrated a similar point with a real-world example: an AI might be able to write a decent press release, but only someone with a trained eye and industry insight knows what makes one truly work.
If you don't have that expertise, if you don't have that training, that taste, it may seem like a beautifully written press release, said Wares. But then you hand it over to a publicist who has 10 years of experience . . . they're gonna take a look at it and say, Oh, no. This will never fly.'
Or, as Camp put it: If you dont have the taste to discern whats working and whats not working, youre gonna lose out to the people that do have the taste, because anybody can [use AI to write songs].
AI can generate an infinity of beats-but only you can tell if they slap.
Dont Skip the StepsIf taste should guide our use of AI, then building the skills that form our taste is essential. Dont skip the steps, as Wares said.
This advice was especially relevant to the students in the room, who might be tempted by AIs ease and accessibility to use it instead of developing their own skills. Camp put it bluntly: If you have to learn how to write a song, dont have the GPT write a song for you.
But skill-building isnt just for beginners. Everything is use it or lose it, Landay said. You know what happens when you dont practice your instrument, right? . . . You start to lose it. And its true of everything.
If one thinks, Oh, I can outsource that to ChatGPT, Im just gonna pop this PDF in the LLM, and its going to summarize it for me, youre going to lose something. And its not just summarizing. Its these critical thinking and analyzing skills, and thats what it means to be human.
If you dont have the taste to discern whats working and whats not working, youre gonna lose out to the people that do have the taste.
- Ben Camp, Associate Professor, Songwriting
And while not every human skill is worth keeping sharp, we need to be thoughtful about what we trade away, and what we build in its place.
I used to be really proud of myself that I was able to remember phone numbers. I dont anymore. Do I need to be that? No, said Wyner. But in order to move forward, what do you need to be practicing? Theres a great deal of pleasure in letting go of things we dont need to be doing anymore. But ultimately thats got to be replaced . . . by something that is useful to you.
Refining, Not Replacing, Your Creative ProcessWyner has seen AI tools dramatically expand whats possible in audio engineering: I could do things using AI I never could do bef
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
07/08/2025
July 8 2025, 22:30 (PDT) Tata Motors & Dolby Bring Dolby Atmos to Harrier.ev, R...
18/07/2025
DENVER Imagine Communications has announced that it is deepening its commitment to the North American sports and live events market with investments in its prod...
18/07/2025
LOS GATOS, Calif. Netflix once again reported strong financial growth, with revenue increasing 16% year-over-year to $11.079 billion in Q2 2025 as net income s...
17/07/2025
Blanche Barton, Peter Gilmore, Scott Cummings, Sundance Institute Director of Programming Kim Yutani, and Peggy Nadramia throwing horns. (Stephen Lovekin/Shutte...
17/07/2025
Spotify's goal with audiobooks is to help grow the publishing industry and create the best possible experience for booklovers, which is why we're launch...
17/07/2025
An advanced large solid rocket motor hot fire test conducted at L3Harris' Camden, Arkansas, site....
17/07/2025
L3Harris payloads and components have been on board every U.S. GPS satellite-more than 70 missions since the 1970s. Our technology is at the core of GPS availab...
17/07/2025
L3Harris' pack of launched effects is comprised of multi-role vehicles that ...
17/07/2025
NEW YORK - July 17, 2025 - Gracenote, the content data business unit of Nielsen, has announced the appointment of Ryan Moore to the new role of Chief Business O...
17/07/2025
READING, Pa. Network technology startup Miri Technologies has added David Cohen as vice president, business development. He'll be tasked with expanding the ...
17/07/2025
Berklee Wins CASE Award for Standout Digital Campaign The Alumni Affairs team's Variations Signature Series earned recognition for offering an authentic p...
17/07/2025
Early Thursday morning, the U.S. Senate voted to cut federal funding for PBS and NPR in a bill that also included cuts for foreign aid. In a 51-48 vote, the act...
17/07/2025
GREAT Britain and Northern Ireland Pavilions across IBC2025 (12 15 September, RAI Amsterdam) feature a remarkable 34 companies, each providing unique, innovativ...
17/07/2025
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. The Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers today introduced its Content Provenance and Authenticity (CPA) in Media Study Group (S...
17/07/2025
NEW YORK Despite widespread concerns about a soft advertising market, NBCUniversal said it closed its 2025-26 upfront negotiation cycle with a record ad sales v...
17/07/2025
NEW YORK Television advertising remains an effective means to market and influence younger baby boomer and Generation X consumers approaching retirement age, ac...
17/07/2025
ALLENTOWN, Pa. & JERSEY CITY, N.J. Service Electric Cable TV and OpenVault have announced that the operator is deploying the OpenVault Proactive Network Manage...
17/07/2025
WASHINGTON Following up on his first major policy speech just two ago, Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr is promising to buck the usual summ...
17/07/2025
Luxembourg, 14 July 2025 - SES received the final regulatory approvals for the SES-Intelsat transaction, including the US Federal Communications Commission.
O...
17/07/2025
Berklee Alumni Nominated for 2025 Emmy Awards Twenty-four Berklee alumni received nominations across categories in sound mixing, sound editing, and compositio...
17/07/2025
Cast your vote in 2 categories for Ivory 3 American Concert DIvory 3 American Concert D is in the 2025 MIDI Innovation Awards and we are honored to be nominated...
17/07/2025
SVG Sit-Down: OpenDrives' Sean Lee, Michael Wilsker, and Jason Matousek on E...
17/07/2025
Oracle's Geoff Tognetti on Staying Ahead of the AI Curve Through Further Ado...
17/07/2025
NBA's Summer League Is a Hot Bed of AI, Immersive Innovation Testing Audio mixing, intelligent camera framing are among AI-driven efforts By Ken Kerschbaum...
17/07/2025
SVG's TranSPORT Conference Returns to NYC on Oct. 21; Register Today! By SVG Staff
Thursday, July 17, 2025 - 8:29 am
Print This Story | Subscribe
St...
17/07/2025
Gravity Media chosen as group name for merged OB business By George Bevir
Wednesday, July 16, 2025 - 11:30
Print This Story
Gravity Media executive chairm...
17/07/2025
SES Closes Deal to Acquire Intelsat, Creating New Giant in Satellite Connectivit...
17/07/2025
How MLB Pulled Off That Unforgettable Hank Aaron Tribute at the All-Star Game Vintage content, state-of-the-art projection/processing combine in marvelous mile...
17/07/2025
Wuppertal July 17, 2025
Riedel Communications Powers Handa Opera on Sydney Har...
17/07/2025
Back to All News
Thai Legendary Bandit Explodes to Life in Netflixs Gold Rush ...
17/07/2025
Fox Corporation Executives to Discuss Fourth Quarter and Full Year Fiscal 2025 F...
17/07/2025
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, w...
17/07/2025
The summer is here and RT Radio 1 has unveiled a lively seasonal lineup, packed...
17/07/2025
Listen up citizens, the law is back and patrolling the cloud. Nacon's RoboCop Rogue City - Unfinished Business launches today in the cloud, bringing justice...
16/07/2025
It's Emmy nominations day, and Sundance Institute storytellers are basking i...
16/07/2025
Spotify's podcast editorial team is always on the hunt for shows and episodes that spark conversation, push boundaries, and keep us coming back for more. As...
16/07/2025
eds3_5_jq(document).ready(function($) { $(#eds_sliderM519).chameleonSlider_2_1({...
16/07/2025
Join us at IBC this September and take control of your content. Discover how we're bringing a new level of purpose and precision to the application of AI in...
16/07/2025
Warsaw - Poland, June 24, 2025 - Nielsen, the global leader in audience measurement, data and analytics, has released its latest May All Screens Video Landscape...
16/07/2025
Bluey Tops Nielsen's Overall Streaming List with More Than 25 Billion Minutes Streamed from January through June 2025
Big June Vaults Squid Game into Top O...
16/07/2025
TV SIM, the SBT affiliate serving Esp rito Santo state in Brazil, has launched a transmitter upgrade initiative with the installation of a Rohde & Schwarz R&S T...
16/07/2025
Pebble, the leading automation, content management and integrated channel specialist, is turning its vision to the future of automation with its demonstrations ...
16/07/2025
Ikegami announces a new addition to its UNICAM-XE product range with the introduction of the UHK-X700RF wireless portable camera: The new version has the same f...
16/07/2025
Today, Amazon Web Services added TwelveLabs as a new model provider to Amazon Bedrock, delivering what could be the most significant breakthrough in enterprise ...
16/07/2025
NEW YORK Streaming platforms continued to dominate TV viewing patterns in June, with data from Nielsen's 50th monthly report of The Gauge showing that strea...
16/07/2025
MAHWAH, NJ Ikegami has introduced the the UHK-X700RF wireless portable camera, a new addition to its UNICAM-XE product range with the same feature set, operatio...
16/07/2025
LONDON IBC2025 organizers said global attendees will have access to a new feature that will integrate Amsterdam's GVB public transport pass into the officia...
How Musicians Can (and Should) Use AI-According to Berklee Experts At Berklee's first AI and Music Innovation event, artists and educators explored how artificial intelligence is reshaping creativity and artistic responsibility-and what today's musicians need to know.
