There's a lot of music that sounds like it's literally

Aimee Mann, the poet of song and soul, once spoke with lament and warning: “There’s a lot of music that sounds like it’s literally computer-generated, totally divorced from a guy sitting down at an instrument.” In these words, she does not merely critique the age of machines, but calls us back to the essence of art itself. She reminds us that music is not only sound—it is touch, it is breath, it is the pulse of a living hand striking strings, keys, or skins. When it is stripped of this human root, it risks becoming an echo without a heart.

To say that some music is “divorced from a guy sitting down at an instrument” is to name the danger of separation. For centuries, music was born of intimacy: the bow against the violin, the breath through the flute, the hammer upon the drum. Each note carried the imperfections and passions of its maker. But when music is manufactured only by machines, when its rhythm is calculated and its tones programmed, it loses the trembling humanity that makes it alive. What remains may be clever, but it is hollow—a body without a soul.

History shows us this truth. When the ancient Greeks spoke of music, or mousikē, they saw it as inseparable from the body and the spirit. The lyre was strummed not only to please the ear, but to harmonize the soul. In the Middle Ages, monks singing plainchant filled their stone halls with voices that rose like prayer itself. Their music could never be machine-made, for its beauty lay in the fragile breath of men. Mann’s words remind us that true music is not perfect precision, but living imperfection touched by love.

Consider the story of Bob Dylan, who transformed the world of song not with technical polish but with raw, unvarnished humanity. His voice was cracked, his guitar simple, yet his songs carried the spirit of a people. They were born from a man sitting down with an instrument, not a machine spitting patterns. In him we see Mann’s warning illuminated: the power of music is not in sterility, but in the trembling life of its maker.

And yet, her words are not a condemnation of progress. Machines themselves are tools, and tools can serve beauty when guided by the human hand. The danger lies not in the computer itself, but in forgetting the human touch. When technology replaces rather than enhances humanity, we are left with sound that is clever but bloodless, rhythm without resonance, noise without soul. The art becomes product, and the song becomes simulation.

The lesson, then, is this: do not let art lose its humanity. Whether you are a musician, a writer, or a dreamer, remember that what gives your work life is not its perfection, but its soul. Do not fear flaws, for they are the proof of life. Do not surrender entirely to the machine, for though it may polish, it cannot breathe. The truest music comes when flesh meets wood, when hand meets string, when heart meets note.

So, O seekers of tomorrow, take Aimee Mann’s wisdom into your lives. Embrace the tools of your age, yes, but never let them sever you from your own humanity. Sit down at the instrument—whatever your instrument may be. Touch it, struggle with it, pour yourself into it. Let your art carry not only cleverness, but truth, not only sound, but soul.

Thus remember always: real music is born where human hands meet human hearts. Without that union, sound may impress, but it will never transform. With it, even the simplest song can outlive centuries.