Just a Man Standing

A MODERN MUSICAL EXPERIMENT

Just a Man Standing

NEW RELEASE: “Lost in your rewind”

“Lost in your rewind” (Launches May 31)

ABOUT

Written many years ago when I was in a relationship, “Lost in Your Rewind” explores the tension between what feels right and what is actually right. It tells the story of two people who are deeply connected but struggle with the boundaries and moralities of their connection. In essence, it reflects on a fleeting but intense connection and an unspoken understanding that some things, no matter how powerful, just happen at the wrong time and place and are not meant to be.

LYRICS

Written by Just a Man Standing

MUSIC & VOCALS

Udio by Uncharted Labs, Inc

PRODUCTION

Just a Man Standing

Distrokid Mixea

The JAMS manifesto

For many years, I've written lyrics—I have notebooks full of them. But only occasionally, in an otherwise busy life of family, work, and travel, have I found both the time and talented artists with whom I could collaborate to bring these songs to life.

In the past, I have brought songs to life in the “traditional” way. Besides writing lyrics, it turns out I can hold a tune. I’m no Axl Rose, but I can scrape by. So as much as writing and being a vocalist makes one an “artist,” then I guess I can claim to be just that. However, I’ve always leaned on other artists for their musicality and instrumental talents.

Today, technology offers someone like me a chance to bring my lyrics to life despite not having the full spectrum of traditional musical artistry skills nor the time, connections or funds to source them. So this release (and future releases) is a fusion of my creativity and modern technological innovation. I can now experiment, refine, and perfect the songs I hear in my head until they play out aloud.

I understand the concerns about AI in music. There is irreplaceable magic in human performance, live shows, and the spontaneity of real-time creation. Technology doesn't replace that magic; but it can supplement it, creating new opportunities for expression.

“technology offers someone like

me a chance to bring my

lyrics to life”

“There's much talk of artists being replicated by AI. My hope is that the opposite occurs”

Specifically, my use of AI is focused on enhancing and refining my genuine, human-generated ideas. It provides me with the opportunity to listen to my lyrics being sung by different personas, build song structure, experiment with melodies, tweak, improve, and ultimately bring to life what's in my head. The core emotion and creativity always stem from my personal experiences and artistic vision. AI and digital tools allow me to bring musical depth and polish.

Of course, I am not the first person to do this. Taryn Southern released an AI-composed album in 2018, and others have done it since.

There's much talk of artists being replicated by AI. My hope is that the opposite occurs. With what I’ve created with the help of these modern tools, I hope artists can be inspired by it, improve it and even replicate it. I'd jump at the opportunity to work with human artists who hear my songs and want to bring them truly to life.

As an artist, I’m not trying to replace artists. I’m just trying to connect with people.

In the end, this is about expanding the boundaries of creativity and connection, allowing us to reach new heights and touch more lives through the things we’re passionate about.

I’m just a man standing in front of you, offering what I’ve created by combining some of the skills I do possess - creativity, writing and tech literacy.

The process

It all begins with lyrics in an old-fashioned notebook. Written over the past three decades, the words are complemented by notes, arrows, and scribbles—forgotten ideas of melodies, hooks, and sounds.

From those notes, I form a concept of the song I’m looking for, often tweaking the lyrics. After all, some were written when I was a teenager and can be a little ‘cringe.’

I then use AI-based music tools (Udio being my favourite) to start experimenting with music and often vocals to try find my sound.

This part isn’t as simple as you might think. Sure, it could be simple, but simple produces simple (i.e. shitty) results. It’s not just a matter of feeding the lyrics in and writing a prompt like, “an introspective ballad pop song with a male vocal,” and having a perfectly completed song magically appear. It doesn’t work this way. For starters, most generative AI music tools' output is limited to ~30 seconds. And the generations are not perfect every time, requiring many regenerations to get that perfect ‘take.’ In reality, a three-minute song can be the result of hundreds of generations, extensions, cropping, stitching, and inpainting—often days of work.

My general approach is to start with the lead-in to the chorus and then the chorus itself. These sections usually have the key hook or melody. So once I have those right, I build out the remainder of the song around them. Some understanding of music certainly helps—just like ChatGPT, the generative AI music models perform best when you’re specific and able to give them commands around elements like song structure and even chords.

AI tools also have many downfalls. For example, sometimes the vocal tone and timbre can change throughout the song. Choruses are often inconsistent rather than repeating. And AI can have hallucinations, singing random lyrics mid-song. Reducing the instances of these issues takes patience, trial and error, and applying learnings as you go.

Once the song composition has been completed within the AI tool, there’s still more work to be done!

I’ll use UVR to split the audio into separate tracks, then tools like GarageBand or Audacity to tweak each track further—from adding effects to playing around with the EQ balance. For some tracks, I’ll record and use my own vocals which requires further mixing.

All of this, until I hear with my ears what I was hearing in my head. Then I’m done.

Throughout the entire process, I continually seek feedback from a few trusted musical confidants—folks I know will telll me the truth. Their insights are invaluable, often leading to those final tweaks that make the song truly shine.

So, it's a journey of creativity, technology, and collaboration, and it’s incredibly rewarding to see a song evolve from a simple idea in a notebook to a fully realized piece of music.

Music

2024

Lost in Your Rewind (Single)