Generative Love: Using AI to Turn Lives Into Song #216

How to Train a Happy Mind

Scott Snibbe explores an unexpected intersection of AI, music, and love. After discovering the generative music platform Suno, he created deeply personalized songs for members of his family—turning their life stories, struggles, and triumphs into hyper-specific “love songs” in the Buddhist sense of wishing others happiness. As he shares the music and the emotional reactions it evokes, Scott reflects on how AI art, used skillfully, can transform even painful memories into meaning, lift low moods, and open the heart.

Episode 216: Generative Love: Using AI to Turn Lives Into Song

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2026-03-03 33 min Transcript 9 chapters

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<v Speaker>I am an artist, but I've always been a little jealous of musicians and of music in general because it's the only medium that can instantly change your mood.

00:00:08.179 --> 00:00:12.050
<v Speaker>The songs that lifted my spirits changed over the years.

00:00:12.050 --> 00:00:15.589
<v Speaker>It started with my parents' Doobie Brothers and Donna Summer.

00:00:15.589 --> 00:00:18.048
<v Speaker>Then to my teenage love of New Order.

00:00:18.048 --> 00:00:28.088
<v Speaker>Ironically, their song Blue Monday was the track that lifted so many of us up who came of age in the eighties, a song from a new wave band that made happy music about sad things.

00:00:28.088 --> 00:00:38.198
<v Speaker>Into my twenties it was the art rock of Sonic youth and stereo lab that fed, euphoric, altered states of consciousness as I made art late into the night.

00:00:38.198 --> 00:00:47.783
<v Speaker>And still today when I'm feeling down, putting on a track that feels happy or reminds me of happy times can instantly get me out of a funk.

00:00:47.783 --> 00:00:55.752
<v Speaker>A couple months ago, my wife and daughter asked that our family avoid the holiday excess by giving only handmade gifts for Christmas.

00:00:55.752 --> 00:00:58.932
<v Speaker>What came to mind for me immediately was music.

00:00:58.932 --> 00:01:01.472
<v Speaker>Unfortunately, I'm not much of a musician.

00:01:01.472 --> 00:01:08.882
<v Speaker>I've played the flute since I was a boy, but I wasn't sure a halting Telemann sonata was going to rock my family's world.

00:01:08.882 --> 00:01:27.355
<v Speaker>Then I discovered Suno, if you've never heard of it, Suno is a generative AI music platform.

00:01:27.355 --> 00:01:31.644
<v Speaker>You prompt it with a style of music and lyrics, and it produces a song.

00:01:31.644 --> 00:01:50.266
<v Speaker>Many musicians, including friends of mine, are quite furious at this platform because like other generative AI tools, it sucked up every single recorded song on the internet to train its model - without bothering to ask permission or pay for the collective genius of the world's musicians.

00:01:50.266 --> 00:02:02.078
<v Speaker>I'd avoided Suno for these reasons, but recently read that Suno had started making deals with the major labels and compensating artists who opt in to allow their songs to be used in training their models.

00:02:02.078 --> 00:02:10.538
<v Speaker>I also kept running into musicians and producer friends who told me that even they had started using Suno in their work.

00:02:10.538 --> 00:02:14.252
<v Speaker>I will let you be the judge of the results, which I'll play for you in a moment.

00:02:14.252 --> 00:02:19.893
<v Speaker>But first, I'm Scott Snibbe and this is How To Train a Happy Mind.

00:02:19.893 --> 00:02:35.128
<v Speaker>I guess you could call these AI generated songs, "love songs," but with the Buddhist definition of love, wishing others to be happy.

00:02:35.128 --> 00:02:42.533
<v Speaker>So before I play any of these AI songs, I wanna talk a little bit about the emotional effect these AI tunes had on me and my family.

00:02:42.533 --> 00:02:59.063
<v Speaker>These reactions are the main reason I'm talking about AI music today on the podcast, because I found these songs to be even more powerful than my lifetime favorites in lifting my spirits and the mood of those dear to me, making us feel happy.

00:02:59.063 --> 00:03:01.693
<v Speaker>Each song took a few hours to make.

00:03:01.693 --> 00:03:08.532
<v Speaker>I started off in Chat GPT prompting it with a detailed, specific set of quirky truths about the person.

00:03:08.532 --> 00:03:21.073
<v Speaker>For my dad, it was a couple hundred words about growing up in New York City, meeting my mother at Music and Art high school, his drunk, abusive architect dad, hustling a living as a cabinet maker.

00:03:21.073 --> 00:03:33.807
<v Speaker>Always yearning to move to California, making plexiglass sculptures with my mom in the seventies, their divorce in the eighties, doing ecstasy at Esalen, joining a commune in Oregon.

00:03:33.807 --> 00:03:40.002
<v Speaker>Sailing through the Panama Canal as a boat captain and the loving support of his men's group.

00:03:40.002 --> 00:03:48.223
<v Speaker>A gathering of similarly eclectic guys who've stuck by my dad into his old age as he lives out his late years by the beach.

00:03:48.223 --> 00:03:54.193
<v Speaker>All of this Suno put to music in a style of his favorite band, the Beach Boys.

00:03:54.193 --> 00:04:02.608
<v Speaker>As a side note, the Beach Boys were the first concert I ever saw, which my dad took me to in 1976 as a five-year-old boy.

00:04:02.608 --> 00:04:08.175
<v Speaker>It's often said that editing is easier than writing, and I found that to be true with song lyrics.

00:04:08.175 --> 00:04:18.254
<v Speaker>I'm not gonna pretend any of these lyrics match the quality of a genuine musical artist, but over an hour or two, I did my best to steer an AI toward lines that rang true.

00:04:18.254 --> 00:04:22.904
<v Speaker>Then I handcrafted phrases to be more fully authentic and original.

00:04:22.904 --> 00:04:27.492
<v Speaker>I ended up with verses that I thought would delight the person each song was about.

00:04:27.492 --> 00:04:31.860
<v Speaker>Even though they may pale in comparison to a songwriting masterpiece.

00:04:31.860 --> 00:04:39.961
<v Speaker>These songs had a quality different from any song I'd ever heard because unlike popular songs, they didn't have to be universal.

00:04:39.961 --> 00:04:50.095
<v Speaker>Many people know that Layla is about Eric Clapton's boiling passion for George Harrison's wife, but he didn't call her out by her real name, Patty.

00:04:50.095 --> 00:04:58.074
<v Speaker>And it's easy for any of us who've pined for an unrequited love to imagine Layla through the lens of our own life: the one that got away.

00:04:58.074 --> 00:05:05.230
<v Speaker>Unlike Universal Hits, I'd never heard hyper-personalized songs like these ones.

00:05:05.230 --> 00:05:14.379
<v Speaker>Suno made, filled with inside jokes and ultra-specific references, songs that were in many cases made for a single listener.

00:05:14.379 --> 00:05:25.029
<v Speaker>I put these ultra individualized lyrics into Suno, prompting it with the genre, and adjusted that prompt to eventually arrive at a song I thought sounded good.

00:05:25.029 --> 00:05:29.725
<v Speaker>It sometimes took 30 or more revisions to get something that sparked joy.

00:05:29.725 --> 00:05:38.607
<v Speaker>One tip to make your song sound the way you wish is to use ChatGPT to advise on how to adjust your prompt to better achieve the sound you're imagining.

00:05:38.607 --> 00:05:54.074
<v Speaker>For good reason, Suno won't let you use specific artist names as prompts, so you need to describe your song using parlor game language that tries to triangulate how the song should sound without comparing it to any actual artist.

00:05:54.074 --> 00:05:56.444
<v Speaker>This is part of my dad's prompt.

00:05:56.444 --> 00:06:12.151
<v Speaker>Warm melodic pop song built around rich stacked vocal harmonies and bright major key chords, acoustic and clean electric guitars, gentle bass, light drums, and occasional organ or piano sound feels sunlit and coastal with a nostalgic, but forward moving tone.

00:06:12.151 --> 00:06:17.851
<v Speaker>Vocals are smooth and expressive with a clear lead and layered harmonies that swell in the chorus.

00:06:17.851 --> 00:06:24.632
<v Speaker>The song carries optimism, curiosity, and reflection, a life story told with warmth rather than drama.

00:06:24.632 --> 00:06:29.762
<v Speaker>Music should feel breezy and open, like driving toward the ocean with the windows down.

00:06:29.762 --> 00:06:36.100
<v Speaker>It is kind of amazing how unsmooth and unharmonic a prompt needs to be to create a smooth, harmonic song.

00:06:36.100 --> 00:06:42.031
<v Speaker>For most of us, it's hard to clearly hear lyrics of a song, especially when you're listening the first time through.

00:06:42.031 --> 00:06:48.630
<v Speaker>So as I share these songs with you, you may want to go to the webpage for this episode where they're listed out in full.

00:06:48.630 --> 00:06:57.331
<v Speaker>For any of you old enough, this is like the good old days, reading the back cover of an album while you sit cross-legged on the carpet, enjoying its tracks.

00:06:57.331 --> 00:07:04.096
<v Speaker>Before I play my dad's song, I'll read a couple of my favorite lines so it makes more sense.

00:07:04.096 --> 00:07:13.276
<v Speaker>The song starts out as an homage to a sensitive, creative New York City boy who met my mom in high school and hung out with her in sixties New York at Warhol's silver painted factory.

00:07:13.276 --> 00:07:26.031
<v Speaker>City kid with a sketchbook, smile, music and art dreaming wild met Linda back in another frame silver rooms, late trains no fixed name.

00:07:26.031 --> 00:07:40.826
<v Speaker>The song touches on the most painful part of my dad's life, the physical abuse from his father, and the pressure to become a modern architect that my dad finally rejected when he turned down the chance to study at Harvard School of Design like grandpa.

00:07:40.826 --> 00:07:48.495
<v Speaker>His old man spoke of glass and steel, grope and corbu, what's pure and real.

00:07:48.495 --> 00:07:50.656
<v Speaker>Harvard letters on the table laid.

00:07:50.656 --> 00:07:52.995
<v Speaker>Paul said, no, walked the other way.

00:07:52.995 --> 00:08:03.389
<v Speaker>The references to Grope and Corbu are the nicknames grandpa always used for Walter Gropius and Le Corbusier, modern architects my grandfather knew and studied with.

00:08:03.389 --> 00:08:17.473
<v Speaker>The song moves on to lines about the ceiling hung plexiglass sculptures my dad and mom made together . With Lin, they built things out of light, plexiglass, turning, slicing sky and these verses reference the perpetual motion machine I watched my dad work on for years in his workshop.

00:08:17.473 --> 00:08:25.932
<v Speaker>Late night talks, wheels in wheels, almost cracked how forever feels.

00:08:25.932 --> 00:08:32.653
<v Speaker>I'll play the whole song for you in a minute, but first I wanted to tell you about how my dad reacted when he heard it.

00:08:32.653 --> 00:08:36.852
<v Speaker>I texted him the song on Christmas and didn't hear back for a while.

00:08:36.852 --> 00:08:41.758
<v Speaker>But a couple hours later, he called to tell me how deeply the song had touched him.

00:08:41.758 --> 00:08:44.817
<v Speaker>He'd been feeling low about his life that day.

00:08:44.817 --> 00:08:49.077
<v Speaker>A sunny Christmas by the beach can feel pretty sad when you're alone.

00:08:49.077 --> 00:08:55.077
<v Speaker>He was on the way to flee the sunshine and watch a movie with a buddy when he got my message.

00:08:55.077 --> 00:09:03.173
<v Speaker>My dad's now in his eighties, sometimes lonely dealing with a failing body and financial woes like a lot of older people.

00:09:03.173 --> 00:09:07.464
<v Speaker>And he told me that this song really lifted his spirits.

00:09:07.464 --> 00:09:14.724
<v Speaker>He said it made him feel that all the ups and downs of his life when set to music, added up to a beautiful picture.

00:09:14.724 --> 00:09:21.293
<v Speaker>The song made a myth out of a life that sometimes felt chaotic, tragic, accidental.

00:09:21.293 --> 00:09:32.903
<v Speaker>The most popular three paragraphs of my book, How To Train A Happy Mind are about just this, a meditation I call the Hero's Journey.

00:09:32.903 --> 00:09:39.653
<v Speaker>If you've read or listened to the book, you may remember this as a meditation you can do when you're around other people.

00:09:39.653 --> 00:09:51.234
<v Speaker>It asks you to look at loved ones, strangers, even your enemies, and vividly imagine their birth, their death, and where they are right now in their life's journey.

00:09:51.234 --> 00:09:57.467
<v Speaker>They each have hopes they dearly wish to achieve and problems they really want to get rid of.

00:09:57.467 --> 00:10:03.543
<v Speaker>When you think about people in this way, even those you don't like, it opens your heart to them.

00:10:03.543 --> 00:10:07.082
<v Speaker>It puts their life and your life into perspective.

00:10:07.082 --> 00:10:11.493
<v Speaker>It makes you realize that we all walk the hero's journey.

00:10:11.493 --> 00:10:25.105
<v Speaker>Art turns the ordinary into the extraordinary, and thanks to this new, miraculous and maybe felonious tool, we can all now not only imagine our lives as a mythic arc, but feel our lives that way.

00:10:25.105 --> 00:10:33.775
<v Speaker>We can hear our story and the stories of those of the people we love as legends, vividly painted through the power of music.

00:10:33.775 --> 00:10:37.405
<v Speaker>Here's my dad's song, Wind and Time.

00:10:37.405 --> 00:10:45.042
<v Speaker>City kid with a sketchbook smile.

00:10:45.042 --> 00:10:49.322
<v Speaker>Music & Art, dreaming wild.

00:10:49.322 --> 00:10:53.682
<v Speaker>Met Linda back in another frame.

00:10:53.682 --> 00:10:58.022
<v Speaker>Silver rooms, late trains, no fixed name.

00:10:58.022 --> 00:11:15.552
<v Speaker>His old man spoke of glass and steel “Grope” and “Corbu,” what’s pure and real Harvard letters on the table laid, Paul said no, walked the other way.

00:11:15.552 --> 00:11:18.662
<v Speaker>He heard the waves before the sea.

00:11:18.662 --> 00:11:20.841
<v Speaker>Knew there was more than they designed.

00:11:20.841 --> 00:11:23.951
<v Speaker>Wouldn’t build the lines they drew.

00:11:23.951 --> 00:11:27.711
<v Speaker>Had his own way to see it through.

00:11:27.711 --> 00:11:34.471
<v Speaker>Chasing light, chasing sky.

00:11:34.471 --> 00:11:34.471
<v Speaker>Always looking west, never tied.

00:11:34.471 --> 00:11:41.711
<v Speaker>Married Lin, three kids in tow.

00:11:41.711 --> 00:11:46.081
<v Speaker>Scott then Kris, then Kim moved slow.

00:11:46.081 --> 00:11:50.201
<v Speaker>Massachusetts winters bite.

00:11:50.201 --> 00:11:54.522
<v Speaker>Cabinets cut by cold blue light.

00:11:54.522 --> 00:11:57.642
<v Speaker>Dreamed of sun, the open shore.

00:11:57.642 --> 00:12:01.892
<v Speaker>Packed the car, couldn’t stay no more.

00:12:01.892 --> 00:12:06.312
<v Speaker>L.A. first, then Pebble Beach.

00:12:06.312 --> 00:12:10.432
<v Speaker>Garage shop hummin’, waves in reach.

00:12:10.432 --> 00:12:15.611
<v Speaker>Kids fell hard for the ocean air.

00:12:15.611 --> 00:12:22.091
<v Speaker>All wanted to stay right there.

00:12:22.091 --> 00:12:25.392
<v Speaker>Never fit the shape they planned.

00:12:25.392 --> 00:12:29.642
<v Speaker>Sought that wheel that never ends.

00:12:29.642 --> 00:12:32.711
<v Speaker>Loved the sun, the sand, the heat.

00:12:32.711 --> 00:12:37.902
<v Speaker>If the road bent, he’d follow it.

00:12:37.902 --> 00:12:40.861
<v Speaker>With Lin, they built things out of light.

00:12:40.861 --> 00:12:43.461
<v Speaker>Plexiglas turning, slicing sky.

00:12:43.461 --> 00:12:47.662
<v Speaker>Mobiles spinning, colors bright, angles dancing, shapes and flight.

00:12:47.662 --> 00:12:51.971
<v Speaker>Dreamed up a kite pure shape and wind pulled by patterns only they'd seen.

00:12:51.971 --> 00:12:54.562
<v Speaker>Late night talks, wheels in wheels.

00:12:54.562 --> 00:13:00.711
<v Speaker>Almost cracked how forever feels back east again.

00:13:00.711 --> 00:13:03.052
<v Speaker>The pull too strong.

00:13:03.052 --> 00:13:07.407
<v Speaker>House split wide, kids holding on.

00:13:07.407 --> 00:13:11.937
<v Speaker>Paul went West where seekers go.

00:13:11.937 --> 00:13:23.096
<v Speaker>Esalen nights, letting old breath go, new ideas, open doors, men circles, asking something more. Sailed the coast, learned the stars.

00:13:23.096 --> 00:13:32.537
<v Speaker>Captain’s license, Panama far Santa Cruz days, long and loose Watsonville roads, Soquel roots Years roll on, hands still know.

00:13:32.537 --> 00:13:34.917
<v Speaker>Making a living, board by board.

00:13:34.917 --> 00:13:39.297
<v Speaker>Laminated towers sharp and bright like Excalibur made of light.

00:13:39.297 --> 00:13:44.096
<v Speaker>Still even things can rise if you give them wind and time.

00:13:44.096 --> 00:13:46.287
<v Speaker>Built a life from drift and chance.

00:13:46.287 --> 00:13:48.486
<v Speaker>Second acts, another dance.

00:13:48.486 --> 00:13:50.277
<v Speaker>Still the beach, still the view.

00:13:50.277 --> 00:13:52.956
<v Speaker>Friends close by, men’s group true.

00:13:52.956 --> 00:14:00.236
<v Speaker>Wouldn’t trade the road he ran.

00:14:00.236 --> 00:14:08.427
<v Speaker>Every wave, an older man, sun goes down, comes back again.

00:14:08.427 --> 00:14:13.761
<v Speaker>That’s the way it’s always been.

00:14:13.761 --> 00:14:25.922
<v Speaker>Maui Meadows, the evening glows, Paul out back where the soft wind goes.

00:14:25.922 --> 00:14:30.111
<v Speaker>Bare feet in sand, nothing to prove.

00:14:30.111 --> 00:14:36.022
<v Speaker>Just the ocean, in his groove.

00:14:36.022 --> 00:14:42.078
<v Speaker>I made a song for my mother too.

00:14:42.078 --> 00:14:46.639
<v Speaker>My mom is pretty mercurial and I wasn't sure how she would react.

00:14:46.639 --> 00:14:51.558
<v Speaker>As you can see from my dad's song, I didn't hold back the sensitive parts of life.

00:14:51.558 --> 00:14:56.568
<v Speaker>I learned from writing that real specific details are what make art strong.

00:14:56.568 --> 00:15:02.884
<v Speaker>My mom loves the beach just like my dad, but their disagreements begin there too.

00:15:02.884 --> 00:15:08.658
<v Speaker>She prefers Massachusetts chilly breaks to my dad's warm Western waves.

00:15:08.658 --> 00:15:21.469
<v Speaker>Her song touches on us kids, including my wild, hilarious brother who's so similar to my mom, me, the creative, intellectual, and my autistic sister who didn't speak until she was five.

00:15:21.469 --> 00:15:30.754
<v Speaker>The hard work my mom went through after getting divorced to help me pay for college, her lifelong love of music, playing the harp and flute.

00:15:30.754 --> 00:15:41.823
<v Speaker>It also touches on her faith in Christian science, relying on prayer to heal our family's illnesses, and caring for my sister when she was struck by a car while attending art school in Boston.

00:15:41.823 --> 00:15:46.759
<v Speaker>Held Kim steady when things shook.

00:15:46.759 --> 00:15:48.979
<v Speaker>Paid Scott's way with what she took.

00:15:48.979 --> 00:15:51.288
<v Speaker>Christian science spine of steel.

00:15:51.288 --> 00:15:51.948
<v Speaker>Heal it by believing real.

00:15:51.948 --> 00:15:57.812
<v Speaker>I am about to play her song, but before that I wanna share her reaction.

00:15:57.812 --> 00:16:03.392
<v Speaker>I truly had no idea whether my mother would love her song or stop talking to me for making it.

00:16:03.392 --> 00:16:09.902
<v Speaker>But my phone rang a day or two after Christmas, and she told me that it had deeply moved her too.

00:16:09.902 --> 00:16:24.062
<v Speaker>She said she had no idea how I made it, but that the song transformed so many of the painful, sorrowful moments of her life into something beautiful- even her breakups and her New York apartment burning down.

00:16:24.062 --> 00:16:28.562
<v Speaker>My family accuses me of over-exaggerating.

00:16:28.562 --> 00:16:30.121
<v Speaker>But I got it from my mother.

00:16:30.121 --> 00:16:35.942
<v Speaker>And my mom's reaction to this song is probably the hugest exaggeration I've ever heard.

00:16:35.942 --> 00:16:41.192
<v Speaker>She said that her song was the greatest thing I had ever done in my life.

00:16:41.192 --> 00:16:45.121
<v Speaker>Here's the song I made for my mom.

00:16:45.121 --> 00:16:51.032
<v Speaker>It's called She Stays, and it's in the style of her favorite music, sixties French pop.

00:16:51.032 --> 00:16:57.211
<v Speaker>If you want to read along with the lyrics as you listen, go to the webpage for this episode in the show's notes.

00:16:57.211 --> 00:17:01.892
<v Speaker>You'll also find the AI generated album covers there for all the songs.

00:17:01.892 --> 00:17:20.011
<v Speaker>Postwar child, fire in her shoes, Bronx floorboards, nothing to lose.

00:17:20.011 --> 00:17:25.001
<v Speaker>MoMA halls, paint-stained hands.

00:17:25.001 --> 00:17:28.211
<v Speaker>Beat kids talkin’ at the Café Wha?

00:17:28.211 --> 00:17:41.041
<v Speaker>stands Flute in the room, windows wide, grand piano, uptown side, Music & Art, lockers slammed, Paul walked in that's how it began.

00:17:41.041 --> 00:17:48.811
<v Speaker>No fixed address, no straight line, always crossing the fault line.

00:17:48.811 --> 00:17:51.211
<v Speaker>She moved fast, then stood her ground.

00:17:51.211 --> 00:17:59.326
<v Speaker>Learned where the quiet could be found France and Greece, Palevass waves, sunburned days, ocean haze.

00:17:59.326 --> 00:18:09.817
<v Speaker>Back to the city, baby cries, fourth-floor skies Bar downstairs, a spark, a flare.

00:18:09.817 --> 00:18:17.987
<v Speaker>Smoke ate the rooms, no time to care West again — arrows loose.

00:18:17.987 --> 00:18:22.801
<v Speaker>Arizona dust on borrowed boots.

00:18:22.801 --> 00:18:29.082
<v Speaker>No fixed address, no clean break She would rather risk than fake.

00:18:29.082 --> 00:18:32.352
<v Speaker>If the ground moved, she’d move too.

00:18:32.352 --> 00:18:34.922
<v Speaker>That’s how Lin always knew.

00:18:34.922 --> 00:18:41.332
<v Speaker>Scituate salt, Massachusetts grey.

00:18:41.332 --> 00:18:47.642
<v Speaker>Three kids deep — Scott, Kris, Kim grew, Kris laughed loud, same bright wire Kim held quiet, deep within.

00:18:47.642 --> 00:18:52.376
<v Speaker>Plastic sheets, garage light Polished edges cut the night.

00:18:52.376 --> 00:18:59.737
<v Speaker>West coast called — there she went Harp strings bending, metal glint Electric color, razor bright.

00:18:59.737 --> 00:19:01.817
<v Speaker>Jewelry cut from blue arc light.

00:19:01.817 --> 00:19:04.416
<v Speaker>Split with Paul, drew her line.

00:19:04.416 --> 00:19:07.082
<v Speaker>Didn’t ask for borrowed time.

00:19:07.082 --> 00:19:09.102
<v Speaker>August Waters, sound and skin.

00:19:09.102 --> 00:19:11.612
<v Speaker>Younger mind she let back in.

00:19:11.612 --> 00:19:13.951
<v Speaker>Street cart days, cash and cold.

00:19:13.951 --> 00:19:16.142
<v Speaker>She kept going — didn’t fold.

00:19:16.142 --> 00:19:18.451
<v Speaker>Held Kim steady when things shook.

00:19:18.451 --> 00:19:20.821
<v Speaker>Paid Scott’s way with what she took.

00:19:20.821 --> 00:19:23.311
<v Speaker>Christian Science, spine of steel.

00:19:23.311 --> 00:19:25.471
<v Speaker>Heal it by believing real.

00:19:25.471 --> 00:19:27.932
<v Speaker>Now the lighthouse, modern frame.

00:19:27.932 --> 00:19:30.132
<v Speaker>Ocean walks, nothing explained.

00:19:30.132 --> 00:19:33.541
<v Speaker>French pop spinning, headphones on.

00:19:33.541 --> 00:19:38.342
<v Speaker>Solitude — where she belongs.

00:19:38.342 --> 00:19:44.102
<v Speaker>Found her ground, there she stands.

00:19:44.102 --> 00:19:46.682
<v Speaker>Built a life by her own hands.

00:19:46.682 --> 00:19:49.231
<v Speaker>From city fire to ocean calm.

00:19:49.231 --> 00:19:53.701
<v Speaker>She made a world and lived it on.

00:19:53.701 --> 00:19:58.382
<v Speaker>Beach wind cuts, the tide comes in.

00:19:58.382 --> 00:20:03.981
<v Speaker>Alone.

00:20:03.981 --> 00:20:04.862
<v Speaker>Alone.

00:20:04.862 --> 00:20:28.546
<v Speaker>I ended up making a whole AI generated album, one for everyone in our family, cousins, brothers, and sisters-in-law, aunts, and uncles.

00:20:28.546 --> 00:20:34.080
<v Speaker>After I finished it, I even decided to make one more song for my long-dead grandpa.

00:20:34.080 --> 00:20:46.560
<v Speaker>That song, "Blueprint Blues," touches on his physical abuse of my dad and uncle, his depressed wife's suicide, his alcoholism, the neglect he felt raised by a nanny instead of his wealthy parents.

00:20:46.560 --> 00:20:58.560
<v Speaker>The collapse of his architecture career when his own brother turned him into the FBI in the 1950s for being a communist, and his early courageous activism in unions and civil rights.

00:20:58.560 --> 00:21:08.239
<v Speaker>Since my grandpa's dead and his kids don't want to hear anything about him, I guess I made this song more or less just for me to honor the full arc of his life too.

00:21:08.239 --> 00:21:10.368
<v Speaker>I'll play it for you now.

00:21:10.368 --> 00:21:14.358
<v Speaker>Recorded in his favorite style, sixties bebop jazz.

00:21:14.358 --> 00:21:34.662
<v Speaker>Baltimore brick in a factory loom textile money, but the house felt doomed.

00:21:34.662 --> 00:21:53.342
<v Speaker>Mama slipped sideways mind off the rail, raised by a woman history forgot to tell black hands steady, held him tight early lessons in wrong and right civil rights before it had a name blueprint kid with a restless brain.

00:21:53.342 --> 00:21:53.701
<v Speaker>Yeah.

00:21:53.701 --> 00:21:54.511
<v Speaker>Listen.

00:21:54.511 --> 00:21:59.737
<v Speaker>Yeah, listen.

00:21:59.737 --> 00:22:11.882
<v Speaker>Harvard Yard, sharp suit, sharper tongue, Gropius nodded— "You're young." First name terms.

00:22:11.882 --> 00:22:15.092
<v Speaker>Corbu, Grope.

00:22:15.092 --> 00:22:18.061
<v Speaker>Steel and glass, a modern hope.

00:22:18.061 --> 00:22:24.251
<v Speaker>He'd wave off fashions late and loud, Johnson's turn from what he vowed.

00:22:24.251 --> 00:22:30.271
<v Speaker>No frills, no games, no borrowed past, form held firm in concrete cast.

00:22:30.271 --> 00:22:52.021
<v Speaker>Hard edge line, Pour it straight, don’t soften time— Miriam loved him, but the weight was steep.

00:22:52.021 --> 00:23:01.501
<v Speaker>Seventy-three, she couldn't keep, the ghosts, the nights, the hero's rage, A door slam shut on a brutal page.

00:23:01.501 --> 00:23:13.692
<v Speaker>Booze talked louder than reason or grace, Hands too hard, too close to the face, Genius burning, kids took the heat, Love and damage in six-four beat.

00:23:13.692 --> 00:23:26.336
<v Speaker>Brother said “Red,” feds came knockin’, Long file, wrong fear, history watchin’, He laughed it off, poured another drink, built more walls than he’d ever think.

00:23:26.336 --> 00:23:32.696
<v Speaker>Then the doctor said, “Six months, that’s it.” Clock started swingin’, cold and swift.

00:23:32.696 --> 00:23:35.967
<v Speaker>He dropped the glass, stared it down.

00:23:35.967 --> 00:23:38.967
<v Speaker>Kept on livin’—years unbound.

00:23:38.967 --> 00:23:43.977
<v Speaker>Pat on the stoop with a steadier flame.

00:23:43.977 --> 00:23:46.826
<v Speaker>Art school sharp, no borrowed name.

00:23:46.826 --> 00:23:50.342
<v Speaker>Dignity, wit, clear-eyed grace.

00:23:50.342 --> 00:23:52.892
<v Speaker>Graphic lines, a woman’s space.

00:23:52.892 --> 00:23:59.311
<v Speaker>Long love, honest, weathered, real, taught him how to bend, to yield.

00:23:59.311 --> 00:24:05.821
<v Speaker>Old Dick seasoned, corners round, still swung hard, but slowed the sound.

00:24:05.821 --> 00:24:09.182
<v Speaker>Modern lines and seasoned sins.

00:24:09.182 --> 00:24:15.787
<v Speaker>You don’t erase. They live within.

00:24:15.787 --> 00:24:43.176
<v Speaker>Mellowed late, but never tame, still cut lines, still played the game, heard the night when rooms went still, still bent the dark to stubborn will.

00:24:43.176 --> 00:24:46.346
<v Speaker>A life like jazz—no clean resolve.

00:24:46.346 --> 00:24:49.507
<v Speaker>Just themes returned, evolved, dissolved.

00:24:49.507 --> 00:24:52.376
<v Speaker>Curves, lines humming under the tune.

00:24:52.376 --> 00:24:55.537
<v Speaker>Steel and sorrow, mercy too.

00:24:55.537 --> 00:24:58.616
<v Speaker>Blueprint blues and bebop truth.

00:24:58.616 --> 00:25:01.477
<v Speaker>Sharp as glass, but built for use.

00:25:01.477 --> 00:25:07.946
<v Speaker>No halo here, no easy plea, a man, a life, a legacy.

00:25:07.946 --> 00:25:30.715
<v Speaker>I am not gonna play all the songs here, but I do want to talk more about what this album ended up doing to my mind.

00:25:30.715 --> 00:25:36.326
<v Speaker>I listened to each of these songs and variations on them for many hours as I made them.

00:25:36.326 --> 00:25:39.326
<v Speaker>It took a couple weeks to complete the whole project.

00:25:39.326 --> 00:25:45.685
<v Speaker>Once I finished the album, I started listening to the playlist on walks, in the car, while making dinner.

00:25:45.685 --> 00:25:52.721
<v Speaker>What I found was that each song brought me such a deep, warm feeling of love for the person it was about.

00:25:52.721 --> 00:26:07.750
<v Speaker>I found that when I was in a bit of a low mood, putting on this album lifted me out of it in a way that was very different from simply listening to my old favorites because these songs are about my own life and the people that I'm closest to.

00:26:07.750 --> 00:26:12.145
<v Speaker>Many aspects of AI are terrifying.

00:26:12.145 --> 00:26:18.925
<v Speaker>Is it going to take away our jobs, our relationships, our creativity, our thinking, intelligence, and friendships?

00:26:18.925 --> 00:26:21.205
<v Speaker>Maybe, maybe not.

00:26:21.205 --> 00:26:27.530
<v Speaker>But have always been an early adopter of new technologies, curious to explore their potential for good.

00:26:27.530 --> 00:26:38.996
<v Speaker>And I feel like I've discovered at least one positive way to use generative AI to make ultra-specific, loving true art about the people I care for.

00:26:38.996 --> 00:26:45.101
<v Speaker>Now I also want to say that not everyone loved or even liked their songs.

00:26:45.101 --> 00:26:48.641
<v Speaker>My brother's song was patterned after the goth rock that he loves.

00:26:48.641 --> 00:27:06.895
<v Speaker>After a few days of silence, his sole reaction to my gift was a link to an online article about "AI slop." Despite the risks of thousands more swipes like his, I wanted to share my experience making these songs, and if you feel like it, invite you to try making one yourself.

00:27:06.895 --> 00:27:12.955
<v Speaker>Because I find that they ended up working, at least for me, like analytical meditations.

00:27:12.955 --> 00:27:19.375
<v Speaker>Each one embraces the totality of someone with whom I've had a fairly complicated relationship.

00:27:19.375 --> 00:27:23.215
<v Speaker>Each transforms their life's bumpy arc into reverent joy.

00:27:23.215 --> 00:27:42.730
<v Speaker>We're encouraged in meditations on love, compassion, and equanimity to think of friends, enemies and strangers in their fullness, accepting their faults like a loving parent, celebrating their joys and triumphs like a best friend, feeling their pain and conflicts as if they were our own.

00:27:42.730 --> 00:27:48.955
<v Speaker>If you end up making songs of your own, I'm curious whether they'll have the same effect on you.

00:27:48.955 --> 00:27:57.685
<v Speaker>And if you do, I invite you to share them with us on social media where we can be found as trainahappymind if you feel like it.

00:27:57.685 --> 00:27:59.976
<v Speaker>Tag them with #songsforahappymind.

00:27:59.976 --> 00:28:09.596
<v Speaker>If you'd like, visit our Train A Happy Mind Community at trainahappymind.org to privately share your songs there too.

00:28:09.596 --> 00:28:12.701
<v Speaker>I'd love to see how you celebrate your loved ones.

00:28:12.701 --> 00:28:17.651
<v Speaker>I can also offer specific tips on how to use AI to create this new kind of art.

00:28:17.651 --> 00:28:28.090
<v Speaker>Despite the exponential ease of creating a song with ai, it does still take work, creative effort, time, taste, and technical expertise.

00:28:28.090 --> 00:28:35.201
<v Speaker>As we go out on this episode, I'm going to leave you with one last song, genre is new wave.

00:28:35.201 --> 00:28:37.750
<v Speaker>Title is Train a Happy Mind.

00:28:37.750 --> 00:28:42.431
<v Speaker>Subject is an interactive artist turned meditation teacher.

00:28:42.431 --> 00:28:50.286
<v Speaker>In a darkened room, infrared dreams, lines on the floor learned how to see.

00:28:50.286 --> 00:28:58.705
<v Speaker>Bodies became equations in light, you traced the edge between left and right.

00:28:58.705 --> 00:29:06.286
<v Speaker>Responsive figures, elastic space, the world leaned in when you changed its face.

00:29:06.286 --> 00:29:10.026
<v Speaker>From motion to meaning, from signal to breath.

00:29:10.026 --> 00:29:12.236
<v Speaker>You followed the pattern.

00:29:12.236 --> 00:29:14.195
<v Speaker>All the way in.

00:29:14.195 --> 00:29:21.796
<v Speaker>Scott Snibbe, drawing time in lines, geometry, under the mind.

00:29:21.796 --> 00:29:29.682
<v Speaker>Touch the screen, then close your eyes, train a happy mind.

00:29:29.682 --> 00:29:38.107
<v Speaker>From pixels to prayer wheels spinning slow, code dissolves into what you know.

00:29:38.107 --> 00:29:40.965
<v Speaker>Stillness is the newest design.

00:29:40.965 --> 00:29:45.935
<v Speaker>Train a happy mind.

00:29:45.935 --> 00:29:53.165
<v Speaker>New York nights, museums hum, algorithms learning where we come from.

00:29:53.165 --> 00:30:01.006
<v Speaker>Then silence spoke in a louder tone, on a cushion, finally alone.

00:30:01.006 --> 00:30:17.346
<v Speaker>The Dalai Lama wrote your name at the front of a book that gently changed the game.

00:30:17.346 --> 00:30:18.635
<v Speaker>No special effects now.

00:30:18.635 --> 00:30:20.306
<v Speaker>Just breath and sound.

00:30:20.306 --> 00:30:24.036
<v Speaker>The deepest interaction was always found.

00:30:24.036 --> 00:30:28.506
<v Speaker>Scott Snibbe, drawing time in lines.

00:30:28.506 --> 00:30:32.375
<v Speaker>Geometry under the mind.

00:30:32.375 --> 00:30:36.766
<v Speaker>Touch the screen, then close your eyes.

00:30:36.766 --> 00:30:40.326
<v Speaker>Train a happy mind.

00:30:40.326 --> 00:30:47.615
<v Speaker>From pixels to prayer wheels spinning slow, code dissolves into what you know.

00:30:47.615 --> 00:30:52.521
<v Speaker>Stillness is the newest design.

00:30:52.521 --> 00:30:56.066
<v Speaker>Train a happy mind.

00:30:56.066 --> 00:30:58.715
<v Speaker>Thangka grids beneath red skin and blue.

00:30:58.715 --> 00:31:00.276
<v Speaker>Ancient math seeing through you.

00:31:00.276 --> 00:31:03.365
<v Speaker>Circles inside squares inside flame.

00:31:03.365 --> 00:31:07.355
<v Speaker>No-self wearing a thousand names.

00:31:07.355 --> 00:31:11.246
<v Speaker>Ahna maps the brain next door.

00:31:11.246 --> 00:31:15.546
<v Speaker>Art and science share the floor.

00:31:15.546 --> 00:31:19.108
<v Speaker>Samaya laughs, a pattern wakes.

00:31:19.108 --> 00:31:22.711
<v Speaker>Tomorrow humming before it breaks.

00:31:22.711 --> 00:31:26.395
<v Speaker>Zeros and ones turn into vows.

00:31:26.395 --> 00:31:30.441
<v Speaker>Love is the system that runs you now.

00:31:30.441 --> 00:31:36.871
<v Speaker>Scott Snibbe, no edge to find, only curves in space and time.

00:31:36.871 --> 00:31:45.215
<v Speaker>Host on the mic, robes left behind, teaching through a human life.

00:31:45.215 --> 00:31:54.111
<v Speaker>From motion capture to letting go, from what you made to what you know.

00:31:54.111 --> 00:32:02.088
<v Speaker>The art was always the mind, training itself to be kind.

00:32:02.088 --> 00:32:02.749
<v Speaker>Fade to breath.

00:32:02.749 --> 00:32:04.661
<v Speaker>Fade to tone.

00:32:04.661 --> 00:32:08.510
<v Speaker>Signals quiet, self unknown.

00:32:08.510 --> 00:32:17.961
<v Speaker>Train a happy mind.

00:32:17.961 --> 00:32:23.228
<v Speaker>Thanks for joining me to talk about AI music and love.

00:32:23.228 --> 00:32:30.137
<v Speaker>You can find the lyrics, album, art, and more information about how I created these songs on this episode's webpage at howtotrainahappymind.org.

00:32:30.137 --> 00:32:49.597
<v Speaker>You can also discover hundreds of past episodes of the podcast, including interviews with the musicians Laurie Anderson and Chris Ballew, also known as Caspar Babypants, and information about the Train A Happy Mind community that meets every Sunday morning to meditate and talk together.

00:32:49.597 --> 00:32:56.298
<v Speaker>How to Train A Happy Mind is a nonprofit project of A Skeptics Path to Enlightenment.

00:32:56.298 --> 00:32:59.238
<v Speaker>The podcast is offered free and without ads.

00:32:59.238 --> 00:33:10.238
<v Speaker>Thanks to the support of listeners, if you'd like to invest in our mission, your tax deductible contributions of cash or cryptocurrency are happily accepted on our website too.

00:33:10.238 --> 00:33:16.607
<v Speaker>Thanks to Isabela Acebal for marketing and production on this episode.

00:33:16.607 --> 00:33:20.087
<v Speaker>We wish you a wonderful day.