Human Music In Artificial Weather

Paying tribute to the late Richard Gill. One of the best music educators I had the privilege of knowing. Do you think he spent his lifetime fighting for music to be in schools, to one day learn that it has the value of a paper cup?

I am trying to begin again in a very strange time.

That may sound odd coming from someone who has been musical for most of his life.

I have been writing, playing, composing, teaching, arranging and thinking in music for decades. I have lived with harmony, touch, timing, orchestration, humour, grief, memory and discipline for so long, that I do not really know where the music ends and I begin.

Automation and/or looking the other way, is not sound policy reform.

I have been an APRA member since 1996. I have written songs, piano compositions, orchestral works, educational works, comic pieces, serious pieces, strange pieces, tender pieces and pieces that probably require a doctor’s note. I have recorded, taught, performed, produced, presented all formats of radio, written for myself, written for others, and spent a large part of my life trying to understand what music actually means when it comes from a human being.

And yet, in some ways, I feel like I am starting now. That is the odd part.

I am not a young artist emerging into a clean field. I am not a known writer with an established catalogue machine behind me. I am not Tina Arena, with a lifetime of public recognition, industry memory, trusted visibility and an audience that already understands the name. I mention her with great respect. Artists like that did the work, survived the business and earned their place. But they stand on a platform that is already built.

I am standing near the edge of one, holding a very large box of music, wondering whether the floorboards are still there.

The question I keep coming back to is uncomfortable, but honest:

Do I have the same opportunity? The answer, I think, is no. Not structurally.

Most people hear the words scraping and slurping and have no idea what it means. I must admit, I didn't and still have trouble getting my head around it.

A recognised artist has history working for them. Their name carries evidence. Their work enters the room before they do. Their catalogue has a public trail, their audience has memory and their professional identity has already been accepted by the marketplace.

For someone like me, the work may exist, but the recognition does not necessarily exist with it. The music may have taken decades to form, but online it can appear as if it arrived yesterday.

A lifetime of writing can be mistaken for a new account. A fully human catalogue can be viewed through the lens of modern suspicion: “Was this made by AI?” “Is this real?” “Who is this person?” “Why haven’t I heard of him?” That is a difficult starting point. It is also why I am being very clear.

My music is human-authored. I write the notes. I plan the harmony. I shape the structure. I make the choices. I live with the awkward endings, the funny turns, the tenderness, the wrong notes that become right notes, the rhythmic decisions, the little harmonic doorways, the odd emotional weather that cannot be downloaded as a preset.

I may use modern tools around the work. I may use technology to help present, organise, illustrate or communicate the catalogue. I am not against tools. Musicians have always used tools. Tape machines, microphones, synthesisers, samplers, notation software, sequencers, digital audio workstations, virtual instruments and now AI-adjacent systems have all changed the way music is made, presented or distributed. Ban the tape machine! All last

year I'm playing Rachmaninoff Sonata for Cello and Piano. Music is natural for me.

But there is a difference between using tools and surrendering authorship and copyright protection. That difference matters to me.

It matters because I have spent a lifetime becoming musical in ways that are hard to explain on a profile page. A person does not develop touch at the piano by typing a sentence. A person does not learn harmonic instinct by pressing refresh. A person does not absorb the weight of Rachmaninoff, the restraint of Debussy, the architecture of Bach, the sideways humour of Dudley Moore, the pocket of great studio players, the discipline of classical training, the timing of radio and the emotional residue of a really complicated and traumatic life, simply by asking a machine to “make something move.”

Music carries evidence of life. At least, the music I care about does.

That is why the current AI and copyright climate feels so unsettling. This is not only about whether I can call myself the author of a piece of music. It is about whether human-authored musical works and recordings will continue to be recognised, licensed, protected and paid for in ways that make sense.

Copyright is not just a legal technicality to me. It is one of the few structures that says a lifetime of musical labour has value. It connects authorship to consent. It connects use to permission. It connects copying, reproduction, performance, communication, recording, licensing and payment back to the person who made the work. We don't add more blankets

to a bed when we are too hot already, yet those blankets are designed to leave us cold. It feels as though we are just adding layer upon layer of circle jerk. I'm not saying this is the case, but that's the vibe that seems to be catching.

*For an established artist, that is threatening enough.

*For an unknown or under-recognised artist, it can feel like arriving at the station, just as the railway line is being pulled up.

There is also the discoverability problem. Even before AI, the digital world was crowded. There was already more music than any listener could reasonably hear. Now the volume can increase without the same human cost of making it. That does not mean all AI-generated music is worthless and it does not mean all human music is good. But it does mean that human work risks becoming harder to find, harder to identify and harder to value. As an educator, I am always looking at the industry to find way to be relevant to my students.

So when I ask whether I have the same opportunity as someone already known, I am not asking for sympathy. I am asking a practical question.

• Does a person with a serious musical past, but limited public traction, still get a fair chance?

• Can a catalogue built over decades be heard on its own terms?

• Can a human composer emerge late or re-emerge late, without being flattened by algorithms, confusion, suspicion, platform noise, copyright uncertainty and the sheer velocity of the modern content machine?

I do not know. But I do know this: I am not starting from nothing. I am starting from a life in music.

My concern is not simply that these rights will vanish overnight. It is that they may become blurred, bypassed or devalued inside new systems before many independent creators understand the terms. Smart contracts, tokenised catalogues, AI training datasets, automated licensing platforms and synthetic music tools may all promise efficiency, but efficiency is not the same as fairness.

A faster payment system is only useful if the right people are being paid for the right uses under terms they knowingly accepted.

So when I say my music is human-authored, I am also saying something more specific:

my musical works and recordings are not raw material for a machine economy. They are copyright works. They are part of a human catalogue. They carry years of learning, writing, revision, memory and lived musical experience.

That may not carry the same commercial power as fame, but it carries another kind of weight.

It means the work is not a stunt.

It is not a trend.

It is not a prompt.

It is not an attempt to appear musical.

It comes from years of listening, failing, revising, teaching, remembering, hiding, trying again, and occasionally finding something at the piano that feels more truthful than anything I could say in ordinary language.

That is why O.H.M. exists.

Ordinary Human Musician.

The name is partly serious and partly absurd, which is fairly accurate. It is not a claim to greatness. Nor is it a claim to being average. It is a claim to authorship. It is a small flag in strange weather. It says: there is a human being here. There is a catalogue here. There is humour here. There is sadness here. There is craft here. There is a person trying to make sense of things through music.

I cannot pretend the playing field is level. It is not.

Established artists have advantages that people like me do not have. They have recognition, history, media access, professional networks, teams, lawyers, publishers, labels, advocates and a public story already understood by others.

But perhaps my opportunity is not the same opportunity. Perhaps it is a different one.

The opportunity is to be clear. To document the work. To release it honestly. To let the music stand without pretending to be younger, slicker, more fashionable or more algorithmically convenient than it is. To say what was made by me, what tools were used around it, and what remains completely human at the centre.

I do not expect the world to stop and make room. But I do think there should still be room.

Room for people who did not arrive through the usual door.

Room for late emergence.

Room for private catalogues.

Room for human authorship in an artificial age. Room for music that has taken a lifetime to become visible.

So before judging the hesitation, put yourself in my shoes.

Imagine carrying decades of music into a world that now asks whether music needs musicians at all.

Imagine trying to release work you know is human, while the systems around it are becoming less human by the month.

Imagine having enough experience to know what you are doing, but not enough public recognition to be protected by reputation.

That is where I am. Apprehensive, yes. But not empty-handed.

I am here with the work.