Griffin has been taking music lessons for a few years—first piano and then trombone. He plays in the jazz band at school and is improving rapidly. Along the way, he has become interested in composing music. With easy, free electronic tools like BeepBox, he is able to develop electronic compositions pretty easily. Sarah and I have been quite impressed with what he’s been working on. This summer, he’s hoping to enroll in a music theory class at the Saint Paul Conservatory of Music.
This is his most recent composition, completed this morning:
The Song of the Ages
And here are links to a bunch of other pieces he’s been working on over the past few months, at various levels of completion. Some of them are just for fun. Others were composed to fill particular needs in his video game coding projects.
Star DanceA Character ThemeAmbience UnfinishedBeepBox SongDrippity SplitFrog SongFun SongGame OverLittle SongifyQuite UnfinishedThe Game MusicTheme for BobUnfinished ForeverUntitledValley of the Midnight Dancers
AI art is controversial. Some would say the phrase is an oxymoron. Or it’s more like AI Art Theft. I follow these discussions with interest and think that there is a lot to be concerned about. With that said, I also have a MidJourney account that I’ve been using for the past six months to play with the technology. I mostly use it for role-playing game material, particularly for illustrations of the fictional characters that inhabit the milieu.
While preparing for a birthday game session for Griffin and some of his friends, I needed to whip up a bunch of modern-day characters for the adventure (wherein a mundane plane flight would go horribly awry). Here’s the cast, giving you a sense of what MidJourney can produce these days.
Carlos Quintana, helicopter tour pilotCindi Bankemper, physics teacherDuke Remington, police detectiveGreg Stamour, paramedicTesha Janusz, circus coachWhiskey Sour, drag queen
Note that for each image, I gave a very simple prompt. Whiskey Sour’s prompt, for example, was “middle-aged drag queen.” I never specified an art style, so it’s interesting that four of them are photo-realistic while Cindi and Duke are stylized. (Ms. Bankemper’s prompt was “science teacher middle-aged red-head glasses.”)
In a comical turn, on my first attempt at Greg Stamour, I typed in this prompt, “hot surfer dude paramedic.” MidJourney always produces four possibilities for each prompt. You can then choose one, add variations, or modify your prompt. One of the first four pics for Greg was this one:
hot surfer dude paramedic
Note the three pairs of sunglasses! Apparently MidJourney’s algorithm associates copious sunglasses with hot surfer dudes. If you zoom in, you can also see that the logo on his shirt is nonsense squiggles. Text-like artifacts are a common issue with generative AI.
I don’t know how all the ethical considerations will shake out in the coming years, but from a tech-geek standpoint, it is fun technology to play with.
The Faculty Fun Committee organized an afternoon of bowling at Sunray Lanes, not far from our house. Maggie opted out, but the rest of us had a great time. (And Griffin beat Andrew!)
Earlier this year, the kids agreed to cook at least one dinner per week for the family. They have chosen a number of bold recipes, including their first lasagna this week! It was delicious.
