It seems that, in the era of mental degradation caused by constant use of LLMs for writing purposes (this is particularly my case — after 25+ years of software coding, I’ve hardly typed a newline by hand in the last year or so), it seems crucial, if you make any music, to be coding it — instead of just clicking it around a DAW, or drag-and-dropping plugin connections the old way¹. Here is why.

It’s a well-known principle that astronauts adhere to: if your body moves from Earth’s surface into zero gravity, your muscles start to deteriorate, and you need extra exercise to keep your body in shape.

The same holds for mental shape. As we knowledge workers adopt more and more LLMs, we tend to think less, or in a more shallow manner, and our corresponding mental “muscles” degrade — studies already show this.

So it definitely helps to do things in a more thought-demanding way, and music coding is exactly that. Of course, using an LLM for this negates the whole benefit — like an astronaut letting some engine pedal the bike instead of his own legs.

So, long live live coding!

What do you think?

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¹ That said, I’m not against live playing in general — I often play the QWERTY virtual keyboard to great joy. This kind of non-coding music production is healthy too!