Collaborate with Me - Let's Build Something Truly Novel Together
In which I offer you a creative prompt or three...and they're not what you think
A few years back I was talking with a pastor friend, Shane O’Garro, about church music. Shane and I share a curiosity for what’s possible in church, musically speaking.
One thing that stuck with me from that conversation was a curiosity about how “traditional” church music might sound if it got a facelift. For example, one of my favorite Biblical texts is Psalm 23 (here’s the New International Standard version):
A Psalm of David
1 The LORD is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
2 He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters,
3 he refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for his name’s sake.
4 Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.
6 Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.
Typically, this Psalm is set to contemplative music. I get it: reflecting on the power of God from a safe distance, David contrasts his currently peaceful reverie with the ways he has been protected is danger. Nice. Music usually holds these words in a soft and gentle embrace.
I wanted more, and so Shane and I agreed to keep an ear open for possibilities.
One setting of this Psalm, by Bobby McFerrin, really caught me. It’s still very tender, and Bobby’s re-imagining of the words is compelling, especially in his use of the pronoun “She” to refer to God. What’s your response?
Bobby McFerrin's VOCAbuLarieS featuring SLIXS & Friends, live in Gdansk, Poland at the Solidarity of Arts Festival, 17 August 2013
For me, it’s beautiful. Sublime. Transportive. Many others have felt that, too, judging by the number of recordings, both audio and video, of Bobby’s musical vision for this Psalm.
And yet, I want to hear the 23rd Psalm as if it really kicks ass.
So, I turned to my virtual parter, Suno AI.
(And if you want to leave this conversation right there, please don’t. There’s goodness ahead, and I promise it won’t steal any music or jobs from working musicians like me.)
Using different translations of the words and some specific, creative prompts from me, Suno produced several different settings, and I’ll share my top three with you here. All of them are up tempo, and each one surprised me in different ways.
Also, I want to say that, on par, Suno does a good job with projects like this. That is, I see room for improving the melodies, possibly the chord structure, and definitely the ins and outs (beginnings and endings for my not-so-musical peeps).
Let’s see how you respond.
This first track is a modern gospel New Orleans funk/soul setting, mostly in a major tonality, with some horn riffs. It’s in E flat, if you’re playing along.
Next, I replaced “soul” with “R&B” in my prompt and got this one, also in E flat major, but with a juicy C minor head:
These first two attempts inspired me to try just one more idea. I was feeling good about the tempo, and needed to dial up the “edgy” meter just a couple more clicks, so I swapped out “R&B” for “rock” and got this last one, which turns out to be in D minor. Also, just for grins, I used the King James Version words. What say you?
Suno has a few surprising capabilities. One of them was opening up space for solos. The chords aren’t complex in any of these tracks, and the solos Suno added are passable enough for my purposes here.
So what are my purposes here, I hear you ask?
Before I answer that, may I offer you Shane’s response? Basically, he couldn’t stop playing that third version! Of course I was delighted. On the other hand, I didn’t know how to respond. I mean, all I really did was figure out how to write a prompt to make my vision for the music intelligible to Suno AI. The words aren’t mine, and the music surely isn’t something I created…or is it? So, thank you, Shane? I mean, it’s music: once we set it free, what it does to you is just cool, and credit for that response is…well, isn’t it yours?
So that’s the lead-in to my purpose for these songs.
You’ve probably noticed that Suno’s creations are passable in many ways, right? “Good enough” to be useful. There are some really beautiful moments, and some that just exist to hold the song together. At least that’s how they feel to me. Are they good enough to be prompts in their own right?
Here’s my purpose for this music:
Let’s take it to the next level together
Stay with me here while I explain.
If you’ve been following this journey so far, you’ll have read about my process and the initial blowback. That’s a conversation worth having. May I give it some shape?
What if you or your band wanted to take one of these settings and improve it? Maybe you’re a singer and have better ideas for the bits of the melody that Suno didn’t create so skillfully. Maybe your praise band needs some new ideas. Maybe you’re a DJ and remixing stuff like this has your attention. To me, all that matters is that you take these tracks as input to your creative process and run with them. I don’t want to monetize them; I want to leverage the creative commons to which you, me, and all creators belong (by default actually), and send these tracks off to come of age under your guidance, whatever versions of them you want to explore, re-create, remix, or simply use as is if that will help you in any way.
It would be awfully nice if you’d let the world know about the project, too, since awareness invites collaboration, and that’s the whole purpose I have in mind. Since “my” creative part is pretty much done, what I also will do is send the music files themselves your way (Substack isn’t great for downloads, and I already have a hosted website where you can grab these tracks, so hit me up if you want them and we’ll do the deed in a way that suits your process best).
The hoped-for result I have in mind is in two parts:
Musicians and creators have new grist for their mills;
Non-musicians discover how they, too, can write music that’s pretty good and definitely satisfying!
If either of those things happen, the ripples created could have a profound effect on music as we know it.
So, are you with me?
PS: I’m only just getting started setting words or poetry as song lyrics. I’ve got some more ideas in mind! Can’t wait to see what happens. The tracks that I want to offer and promote as creative commons will eventually find their way into the world along the lines of this post: free inspiration for your next project. Let’s do this!