iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

But I gotta say, a pedagogy of embodying harmony instead of intellectualizing it is awesome, and that’s what that book represents to me. It’s one thing to know G# is the 9 on an F#7 chord. It’s entirely different to feel how that feels singing it with another person who’s singing the A#.

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If your position is “people who become obsessed with overintellectualizing intonation make lame music,” sure.

Sounds like you’re 1) resistant to the Hindustani/Sufi trad vocal pedagogy that he’s borrowing from because it feels “woo” and not grounded. but also 2) resistant to the practical steps (grounded and not “woo”) he lays out for embodying harmony.

Adam Neely @adamneely.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

This is like saying “I applied the “stock samba feel” groove to a drum clip in ableton, therefore I understand samba!” There is a difference between hearing and embodying something, and Matthieu’s method is about embodying harmony, like rhythm sections embody groove.

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New collab with Button Masher means playing bass at ethically dubious tempos

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Adam Neely @adamneely.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

You already found it - but loopback is the standard for a reason. I’ve been using it for 7 years, and it just works.

Adam Neely @adamneely.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

Sure, I’m coming at it from a purely musical sphere, and I’m trying to keep my commentary to commercial gen AI. I can’t say I know much about visual art, but I’m happy to compare notes.

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Adam Neely @adamneely.bsky.social · 25/05/2026

how does the meshuggification of heavy metal play into this

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Adam Neely @adamneely.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

I don’t think older generations have any concept of just how much older they are

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Adam Neely @adamneely.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

Ren is 36 years old. That is unc, my man.

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Adam Neely @adamneely.bsky.social · 15/05/2026

25 years ago, young people were embracing the new tech. Now, they aren’t. Why is it primarily older people embracing it?

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Adam Neely @adamneely.bsky.social · 27/03/2026

just talked at an AI and music conference at IU Bloomington and I’m happy to report that every student I talked to is militantly radicalized against suno so that’s nice

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Reposted by Adam Neely

Duke Stephens @oliveoilcorp.bsky.social · 25/03/2026

when companies come crawling back from the ai bubble burst and need Premium Grade Artist Labor again

a screenshot from the wire, "price of the brick going up" scene

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Adam Neely @adamneely.bsky.social · 24/02/2026

In terms of their influence on musician culture, this is almost certainly true.

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Adam Neely @adamneely.bsky.social · 20/02/2026

This Tucson maga-adjacent sports bar was just playing Miles Davis’s On the Corner for the past hour, followed by… “Hail to the Redskins.” Idk, man. Idk.

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Not at all, it’s a criticism that has come up a lot, and one I have been thinking about.

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I think about what it would be like to record a solo bass record (a dream of mine) - and how fundamentally silly it would be to listen to the recording over and over again when the experience of making the music with my hands would be so much more fulfilling and important to me.

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This gets into the “composition vs recording” thing - I adore my compositions, but the recordings are sometimes…tricky for me. For many people, the recordings and compositions are one and the same, which leads to that confusing statement I made.

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Adam Neely @adamneely.bsky.social · 16/02/2026

This has come up, and I think it has to do with the fact that I perform my music. When I tour, I play my own music constantly, and love every second of it. When I listen to the recording, my reaction is often “I much prefer how the band plays it now, with the scar tissue of 80 gigs behind us.”

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This is my most generous read on it.

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Adam Neely @adamneely.bsky.social · 16/02/2026

Time is a finite resource, and many in the working class do not have time. Suno is very time-cheap, the same way fast food is time-cheap for people in food deserts who cannot take 2 hours to travel to a grocery store for money-cheap groceries.

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Adam Neely @adamneely.bsky.social · 10/02/2026

I tried calculating a metric modulation and my calculator tapped out

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Since the issue seems to be the Nebula sponsorship, I’d love clarification. Is it that I was sponsored at all? Is it a problem with the company? Why is it this video essay specifically that left a sour taste? Was it just that I used the subject of the essay to lead into the sponsorship?

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I spent 4 months of my life researching, writing and editing a 90 minute video essay. I think the work itself shows that I care deeply. I got a Nebula sponsorship so I could pay rent in that time. I put it at the end so people could click off.

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One of the most consistent pieces of feedback I get is that on the Adam Neely channel is that, I, Adam Neely should never talk about Adam Neely’s music in any context.

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Btw, what I cut from the video was a whole spiel that Mikey Shulman had about how live music would change, and his grand vision was that artists would play Suno fan arrangements in every city they played in on tour. That’s genuinely one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard.

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Yes, live performance is tied in to the general ecosystem of the recorded media, but not the craft. Playing AI songs live would feel a bit soul-crushing, but honestly, not any more soul-crushing than wedding rep. I did that circuit for 7 years

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This is actually a point that Ethan Hein and some others have made (and I hinted at with the section in my video on I run), that pop musicians have been playing the aesthetic equivalent of AI slop for decades now

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My dude, that musician has a gig regardless of what music they are playing. Nothing changes in the demand for that live music, or the craft of the performance. Nothing in the sound engineering, stage craft, arrangement philosophy, gig prep…nothing.

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I gotta say, if “ai generated backing tracks and sheet music,” is your idea of what’s disruptive or going to be disruptive to the craft and industry of live music, you’re really stretching.

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I haven’t lived in New York for 3 years.

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That’s a solution visual artists have used, and I see that being viable, but there’s something about that being simply more “content” to be fed into the polluted digital landscape that makes me feel off about that for myself. YMMV.

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The idea that experiencing any in-person music making at has become a privilege is a truly insane thing to me, but it’s looking like it’s more and more the case. Dark.

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Since recorded media had been so deeply intertwined with digital consumption, this feels related. I think that one way recording artists might “refuse,” or “log off” is to tie their craft more to physical media, but it’s a profoundly difficult question.

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the chronically online will become a new underclass

I’m thinking about how some reacted negatively to the end of my video, and I was just recommended (by a human) this video, that is relevant. youtu.be/Bm2Q9HkbLsQ?... Their conclusion is to “log off,” but they acknowledge that some people simply cannot, and that creates a digital caste system.

youtu.be

YouTube video by MAGIC

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I misspoke. I’m “beginning to find no truth in new recorded media.” Older recorded media still feels sacred.

I have, and do constantly. That’s part of the reason why 4 years ago I started touring aggressively and moved away from YouTube/the internet. I practice what I preach.

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That’s a symptom of the times, and I don’t have solutions for that, beyond “touch grass,” which I know is sad, but I also can’t deny that it’s helped me a lot.

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