Jordan Rudess interview (excerpt)

Wojtek Ozimek: Are you using all this tech when you are composing, or this is just more for fun or just as products for people? Or when you compose, you’re just more in the classical sort of mode and with piano or maybe your Korg?

Jordan Rudess: That’s a great question. Obviously, the last solo albums I’ve made, I’m in the studio and in my case, I’ll use Logic to do what I do, and I take advantage of Logic’s capabilities to do it. I haven’t used any AI stuff in Logic yet, although they’ve started to come out with that. I’ve certainly been experimenting over the last couple years with a lot of AI. You probably know that I’m a visiting artist at MIT. I was last year, and I’m doing that again this year, and we’re working on a very interesting interactive music AI system. So it’s very different than the Sunos and Udios and those companies that are doing great stuff, but in this case I wanted to create something that was more like a jamming partner for myself, meaning that I can sit down and play, and the AI model would listen to what I’m playing and respond and play along with me. That’s what we’ve been working on and getting some really good results, and that project is now continuing in its second year with exploration and research and seeing where it goes. There’s a ton of implications for where it could go as a product, although I’m working with PhD researchers at MIT. That’s not necessarily our focus right now – it’s more about seeing what’s possible.

Now bring it forward to your question, which is do I use some of the stuff in my compositional work when I’m writing for Dream Theater or writing for my own albums; I’ve been on tour with Dream Theater over the last year and a half, coming on two years, and when that all ends and I get back into my studio I honestly don’t know exactly how I’m gonna proceed because so many things have changed. It’s truly mind-blowing what can happen right now with the tech. It goes beyond what most people think is possible to the point where one would really want to rethink, “What am I doing? How is the music I’m making relate to what’s going on in the world today? How am I creating it? What am I gonna do?” So it’s a personal journey for me to take all that I’ve learned and been involved with and figure out how to channel it into my own compositions or, let’s say, my next solo album. Whether I use AI or not, I don’t even know because I’m not there. I’m not at that point yet. I’m still working with the school, been on the road and going, “Oh my God, this is so crazy, this is insane.”

I will say something about Dream Theater, because many people know me in Dream Theater. In Dream Theater, as progressive we are as a group, it’s not really about where my head is at with technology and my exploration and my pathway forward. It’s more about me as a musician, as a composer, and I’m interacting with people who are not coming from the same place that I am, and it’s more almost like, let’s say, a traditional place. There’s a different kind of feeling about AI and what that means to the creative process. Luckily for me, I’m able to say, “You know what, that’s great guys. I don’t even need to turn on my computer when I’m with you. I’ll sit at my keyboard and we’ll compose music and make some great stuff”, which is totally cool. That’s my Dream Theater headspace. And I allow them as a group to blossom in whatever way they want as the years go by and figure out if there’s any technology that the group wants to use. So it’s more about my own personal life as a technologist and a composer and musician – how the technology really gets brought into my life and then gets moved forward. The part of Dream Theater that takes advantage of who I am as a technologist, it’s more about my bringing a cool instrument into the fold. Like I can bring in GeoShred, or I can bring in a ROLI Seaboard and do something cool, or I can bring in my Osmose keyboard, the Expressive E keyboard, which is incredible. I’m very involved with the Osmose and the Seaboard and all these things. So they’ll respect and be interested in my maybe bringing in a new kind of sound into the group.