S.D. (Dakota News Now) – Music has evolved alongside technology for decades, from records and CDs to streaming platforms and now artificial intelligence
For Sioux Falls artist and musician Zac Davis, AI is opening another door.
Davis uses AI to help create what he calls “conviction rap,” a style of Christian music centered on his faith and personal beliefs.
“I use AI to help make my Christian content music. It’s like a kind of a new style of Christian conviction rap. It’s really personal,” Davis said.
Davis said AI helps him develop music while keeping his work aligned with his Christian values.
“I use the AI to help make sure I stay biblically in line with the Christian values,” he said. “And I’m trying to make music for people to identify with to help bring them back to God.”
For Davis, the technology is less about replacing musicians and more about giving people another way to create.
He compares AI’s impact on music to the introduction of photography.
“I see it more as a benefit,” Davis said. “Just like the time when cameras came out, and painters thought that their jobs were over, that it was done, but it just opened up a new avenue.”
But at Popplers Music, General Manager Paul Schlif sees an important part of music that AI can’t replicate: the experience of actually learning to play.
“AI can create it so you can hear it. AI can create music so that you can see it, but AI can’t create that learning experience, that interaction you have with that instrument,” Schlif said.
Schlif has spent decades teaching students of all ages. For him, some of the most meaningful moments happen before a student ever becomes a polished musician.
“Early, early on in my career I was a fifth grade beginning band director, and I personally got no greater thrill teaching than to hear that student make that first sound on that flute, clarinet, oboe, whatever it happened to be, just because it’s so exciting for them,” he said. “You’re not going to get that with AI.”
That doesn’t mean Schlif believes AI has no place in music.
He said the technology can be useful for creating songs, producing music and other applications.
But he questions whether it can replicate the experience of live music.
“I think AI is great for making some music, producing some songs, printing some things out, but prove to me that it’s going to be engaging on the stage or with an audience,” Schlif said.
For both perspectives, the future of music doesn’t necessarily have to be a choice between technology and traditional instruments.
AI can give artists like Davis another tool for creating and sharing their work for free, while musicians like Schlif believe the human element will continue to give music its meaning.
“We have expression, we have souls, we are passionate about things, and all those things can be expressed through music,” Schlif said.
He doesn’t think AI will make traditional music disappear. But he believes audiences and musicians will have to learn where to draw the line for the future of music and artificial intelligence.
“It’s not going to go away, but we need to know where to separate live from computer-generated,” Schlif said.
As AI continues to change how music is created, the technology may make producing a song easier, but local musicians say the reasons people make music in the first place remain deeply human.
Zac Davis’ AI-created music can be found on Spotify here, and the music videos can be found on YouTube here.
More information on Popplers Music for music resources, products, pricing, and lessons can be found here.
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