Singing together is just about as anti-ai as it can get.
We gather, and we sing. Isn't that wonderful? Genuinely. Isn't it?
We use our inherent instrument, and what we make is gone immediately. Nothing to recycle, nothing to train on, nothing to scrape. We don't need to worry about whether what we create in that moment is real or ai-generated: it very clearly isn't, because it's literally coming into being as we exhale.
I do my best to avoid generative ai in my day-to-day life. I admit to using it* a handful of times to suggest program orders and concert titles. However, I no longer actively engage with it and deleted my account (as I did so, the company warned me, "you'll never be able to use this email address to create another account"…no problem!).
I do hear sample tracks, sung by robot/ai voices, posted by composers to help promote their music, and to create learning tracks for singers. I see its usefulness and cost-effectiveness because they help me hear the music before I program it, even if it has never been recorded before. But in the end, the music notes are written by humans, and will be performed by humans.
Those robots will never replace an actual choir. You can tell. There is no soul, they don't breathe! (and their vowels are terrible…)
Music composed by robots is missing something, too. It falls flat in a way we can't quite put our finger on, but can definitely feel.
The joy of singing together is that actual singing. The act of creation in the moment, the process of learning to sing together, the joy of discovering how our voices blend…no ai can ever, ever replace that. My number one philosophy: Good Community = Good Music. Human made. Human connection. Human voices. Human music.
I’m saying nothing new here. We know all of this. But the louder we say it and the louder we live it, the more we can push back against it.
*avoiding naming a specific company