Jojo Mayer: Redefining Drumming with Generative Technology
The nature of artificial intelligence being developed, especially in music and art, has more of a exploitive character. I realised that in order for me to do what I wanted to do, I could not stay in Switzerland. We don't know what's going to come out of this.
A big portion of it is maybe just going to lead to another idea. A lot of those protocols are no longer functioning. Jojo, what is happening here? Well, we're experimenting with a technology that allows a computer not only to hear me, but also to see me and find ways of interpretation according to visual input and not only audio input. Is this also something you do for your shows? Or is it unclear yet for what? Well, it's basically R&D.
We don't know what's going to come out of this. A big portion of it is maybe just going to lead to another idea. So we don't have a deterministic vision of what this could be. This is really research and development at this point. Jojo, we are here Bern, in the Bierhübeli club, where you will be playing tonight with your new project Me/Machine. That's right.
Can you introduce us to your companion? Well, my companion is, a generative music system that, listens to the input of my drumming and renders output according to how I play. So actually it's like a backing track that listens to what I do and changes and when I stop, it also stops. So it renders, some variations of what I play, and then I react to that. So this creates a closed loop that kind of uncouples the hierarchy of cause and effect. It's a little bit like the analytical perception of a fourth dimensionality. So there's many different ways how this can be implemented.
But this is the basic idea. Well, that sounds very promising. How about you show us what that means exactly? Okay. I can show you an example
of something stripped down. There's many different ways that we can program a module, but let's strip it down to something as simple as like a bassline. So I kind of create, an anthropomorphic version of a human bass player, basically. So I start with something simple like...
Okay, so now I add complexity to it. I play more syncopated. Okay. I go a little bit more crazy. I start messing with the bar lines. So I start to put meters. Like random meters of seven or the 21-16, or I change tempos.
The computer will follow me. Okay, so the computer always goes with me. I can listen to what it does. Sometimes it inspires me to do something.
So I can go pretty crazy with that. Other than a human bass player, the computer will always know where I am. Did you give him a name? No. It sounds a little bit confusing.
I mean, you're not playing with a band, but it is reacting to your playing. Yes, well. Obviously it is in an illusion, but do you sometimes believe you're playing with an actual human being? Well, yeah, I do anthropomorphise it sometimes, which of course is nonsense. Like when when this closed loop renders a good output and I'm kind of in the flow it feels like the machine can read my mind, which, of course is not true. So I understand this as prototyping for a new way to make music, for instance. Perhaps this is going to be one day a helmet that can read my mind.
And so I don't actually need to learn to play an instrument, but I only need to learn how to think music in a good way. It's a utopian thing, and it’s not quite without danger because we as humans depend on our body. Our experience is an experience that relates to our physical being. We cannot just erase that. How much of yourself is actually in this machine? Well, I programmed the machine so, you know, I can decide how the machine reacts.
You know, imagine there's a lot of different games that are played with cards, but usually it's 52 cards. There's hundreds of different games. They have different rules.
So what I do here with the different songs or tunes or models, I create games and I programmed the machine to react a certain way. I could program it that it would like a parrot just repeat everything that I do. This would be a very boring game.
I could also put the randomisation up or the probability that it becomes completely chaotic and then it wouldn't make sense. I could play whatever I want and it would never really line up, it would happen only by accident. That's not an interesting game either. When it does get interesting is when I have the sweet spot in the probability that it relates to that I can relate too. It is a little bit of an alter ego of mine and just a distorted one. And it makes me actually discover things about myself.
You told us that, more or less, you have already been experimenting since the pandemic with this machine. How did it change you as a musician by playing with it? I think it projects me to a place of more thoughtfulness and more sensitivity to my own emotions, because I can't blame anyone else if it doesn't come out desirable. It's really just me. So a very, very small thing can get very amplified by the computer. It's almost like a magnifying glass.
You know, I make a little glitch. The glitch is manifested. I will have to deal with the glitch retroactively. Oh, okay, glitches hopefully I can make something with the glitch that I wasn't thinking of four seconds prior to that. Jojo, we are here in Ascona at the Monte Verità at the Literature Festival, what are you doing here? Well, I'm presenting my work. We are all looking forward to this levitation exercise with Jojo Mayer. You spent quite a long time in New York.
Yeah, over 30 years. That’s where your career took off. What was your initial motivation to go to New York and then why did you decide to come back to Switzerland your native country? I went to New York when there were no cell phones, no internet.
And I realised that in order for me to do what I wanted to do, I could not stay in Switzerland. I would have to expose myself to the place where it's happening, where I could grow and do all these things, and Switzerland was not the place that allowed for this type of development. Back then, and how do you see it today? It is similar still. It is a bit different, because basically the biggest metropolitan area sits in your pocket.
It's like you're always connected. And also because of my career path, today it doesn't matter where I live physically because I still travel around the world and Switzerland it's a great place to live, but it's not a great place to work for me personally. But to just live here it is fantastic. What kind of place is New York today in your point of view as a musician? There are millions of people who live there. And of course, there is still people who create amazing things, but it's not the place it used to be. The demographic has changed.
You know, it's like there's a new audience that came in which to a large degree consists of sons and daughters with a privileged, very privileged, background. They come to New York because they want to consume this mythological atmosphere that was created in the last century by cultural desperadoes. Like yourself? Yes. Well, you know, I'm standing on the shoulders of giants.
This is the idea. But they're no longer able to give birth to anything. We spoke before about Switzerland and now you're back. So how do you see the country now? How has it changed in those 30 years? I think it got more colourful, more diverse, which is great. Certain things did not change, which are the things that I miss the most from New York.
In America, there is a sense of generosity and there is a sense of urgency. It doesn't matter if you play in front of 10,000 people or ten, the energy level is very, very, very high. Even if you play in a pizzeria, you max it out, you do whatever you can.
So there is a confidence, over there, of the judgment of the perception, like ‘I have my taste. I know what I like and I recognise this is good’. In Switzerland we are more opportunistic.
It's not safe to make the decision: ‘I really like this, even if nobody else does’. I think it comes from a the Swiss mentality, you know, the ‘Urschweizer’ [original Swiss]. They were mercenaries. You know, this is a very opportunistic job to do, you're very loyal to whoever pays you money. The financial system is maybe like a modernisation or like an extension of that mentality.
So the Swiss neutrality is maybe like a diminutive of what is really opportunism. And I think our wealth, our incredible wealth that we have in Switzerland doesn't belong to us. You know, we just look after it.
Opportunism is on the opposite spectrum of what it takes to make great art. To make great art, you have a point of view and you have to defend it. Opportunism is the opposite. Great art cannot be created with opportunism. It's a ‘Stellungnahme’ [statement]. Concerning the outbursts of creativity, where do you see them, if underneath the mainstream there still are some of those, where would you look for them? People that contribute new ideas, they still exist.
They’ll always exist. Creativity doesn't go down. But the new Alfred Hitchcock or John Coltrane or Jimi Hendrix, they are here, but they are floating in the ocean of signal to noise ratio, where it's going to be more difficult to actually accomplish critical mass that creates a movement. So for the past 20 years, we had a total flattening of the mainstream surface. Compared to the last century you could identify the fifties, the sixties, the seventies, no matter if in music, fashion or film.
After one second, you can tell this is from the sixties. This from the seventies. You can’t tell it about today's music? I cannot tell it, really. I mean, the new fashions are sociopolitical fashions, they go up and out. The things you see, can you also foresee in what direction they are going? Is it even possible to foresee that? Well, I'm not a psychic, of course. I concern myself with the present and what may be coming at us.
Like, now we have this new tool of like artificial intelligence, but the nature of artificial intelligence being developed, especially in music and art, has more of a exploitive character more than explorative. Like, okay, I have a great idea, I think a Bob Marley song and I change Bob Marley with the voice of Frank Sinatra, and with this you can go on forever. But that's not really how I think creativity works, because the difference between us and AI is: AI relates on interpolation and human creativity relates on extrapolation. So it's the accidents, it's the thing that we don't plan, that we integrate, the things that we could not possibly have thought of. I really like improvisation, it's a really deeply rewarding thing It's like to create something on the spot, you know? But improvisation actually has a negative connotation. Most people only improvise if things don't go according to plan or to protocol, and that's why we think, improvisation is provisional and it's better to plan things.
But I think with this time that we live in where the future is coming up at us with the accelerated speed and uncertainty, I think improvisation is possibly going to be a very helpful tool when planning becomes incapacitated. This proves how dangerous this technology is! Now, looking ahead, how do you see the life and work of musicians and artists in general changing in the foreseeable future? I think there's a big opportunity in embracing a new type of freedom where we can make our own storefronts, even if it's very small. But we call the shots. We're no more depending on big organisations, record companies, booking agencies, etc.. But we can actually create on our own. I think we should take that opportunity to express this to the fullest extent.
So to be as radical as we need to do and really create the music... Take risks also? ....that we want to hear, and not maybe make some adjustment or become adaptive to work in the context of what other people believe is still happening. A lot of those protocols are no longer functioning. So we have to dismantle those and actually see, okay, why are we still doing this? Why should we still go into a studio and spend a lot of money and time to make a record? But it's fun to do that.
But on a economical level it doesn't really make any sense. So we can reassign our creativity and our power into actually creating new platforms. If they are digital or physical it doesn't really matter. But I think there's a lot of opportunities where we don't look.
2024-07-03 09:07
