Is There Joy In The Process?

A few months ago, I watched a video of Nick Offerman talking about getting started in woodworking. The first project that they do? A cutting board.

Yep, a simple cutting board where students can learn basic cuts, sanding and finishing. At the end, they have a lovely cutting board that they can take satisfaction in saying they made. The reward is the finished piece, but the experience of making it matters most.

This approach in woodworking is not limited to the craft alone. In many ways, it’s also a great metaphor for playing music.

Let’s talk about Mikey Shulman

It’s hard to avoid, between the ads on my social media feeds and the masses of people who talk about it. You’d think for some that Suno (and similar sites) are the best thing to happen to music since the invention of the note.

For those who might be unfamiliar with Suno, it is an AI-based music generation platform created by Mikey Schulman, Georg Kucsko, Martin Camacho, and Keenan Freyberg. People can use it to create songs by simply typing prompts, upload demos for full-arrangements in different genres, create custom lyrics, voice-cloning, and even use their DAW-style editor. All with the power of AI. 

Simply put, you can create a song by simply asking it to create a song in (genre) with lyrics about (subject) and boom, it creates a song. Now, anyone with the simplest idea and no musical knowledge can “create” music. 

But what I want to focus on are some of the comments made by Mikey Shulman during the 20VC Podcast back in 2025 (comments he also regretted making):

“It’s not really enjoyable to make music now… It takes a lot of time and practice. You need to get really good at an instrument or a piece of production software. I think the majority of people don’t enjoy the majority of the time they spend making music.”

I mean... seriously?!

Let’s talk about what some people actually think about that

Before writing this piece, I decided to conduct my own, very unscientific survey on Facebook with my musician friends, asking whether Mikey Shulman’s statement had any merit. While I did get some opinions, I also got opinions about their use of services such as Suno.

Many musicians have integrated AI tools into their creative process. Technology is now a key part of workflows. For example, as Jeff Balke of the Houston Press notes:

Tools like Suno, Moises, Udio, and all the new AI built into DAWs like Logic, have completely changed the process of writing and recording music even (and especially) if you are flying solo...None of this should deter anyone from good old fashioned collaboration. As good as computers are at mimicking, they are no substitute for the feel and experience of a live musician. But, when you don’t have access to or the money for, say, a string quartet, using AI to deliver one for your demo isn’t the worst idea in the world.

After hearing these varied viewpoints, one major, overriding opinion emerged from my oh-so-unscientific survey (besides that AI would be better used for household chores and taxes, leaving us more time to make music)... The joy is in the process.

It’s about making music—creating something from nothing, and the satisfaction of completing a song, learning a chord, or jamming with friends. Wanting to make music matters more than skill or ability. We do it for how it feels, as a creative outlet. There are no shortcuts and no instant gratification. Like all good things, it needs work, but the rewards are more than worth it.

This enjoyment of the process is important to highlight. It’s also the realm of great ideas and happy accidents. Something no AI can truly do. Like any AI, music creation-based systems are trained on data and can only give you what they’ve been taught (giving it the colloquial term of “the plagiarism machine”, with Suno being trained on all the music out there, with no compensation to the creators.)

And you don’t need a bunch of theory or hours of practice to get started. Know a couple of chords? String them together and find a catchy melody to put on top! Throw some words together for that melody and boom! You have a song!

Like the budding woodworker who learns how to make straight cuts and some finishing, there’s a beautiful cutting board at the end. Was it hard? Probably not. Was a lot of knowledge needed? Just the basics. Was there something to be proud of in the end? You better believe it! The more the woodworker practices, the better they become. The more tools they acquire, the more complex a project they can undertake. With work and experience, that cutting board becomes a dresser or a cabinet, built with pride. 

Will your first be the next “Hey Jude”? Maybe, or maybe not. But it’ll be your song, and not something that an AI spits out at you. And the more songs you write, the better you get. The more musical knowledge you acquire, the bigger your songwriting tool kit becomes. With work and experience, your songs and abilities become like a finely-crafted dresser or cabinet, written and played with pride. 

To prompt Suno to write you a song doesn’t make you a songwriter, much like asking a computer and AI to build you a dresser makes you a carpenter. 

You can’t put toothpaste back in the tube (and other such metaphors)

Regardless of what we think of it, AI is here, and it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. While the “American Idol-ification” of music continues (where success is solely defined by how long you can stand in line to get on a TV show, and if not, you’re a failure), people forget that success takes work. Hard work.

You also have to start doing the work in order to get good. You probably won’t write a hit or shred like Yngwie Malmsteen your first week, but with some practice and repetition, you eventually can.

While it may seem easier to prompt an AI and instantly get a chart-topping track, like the AI-generated artists The Velvet Sundown, Xania Monet, Breaking Rust, among others, the real fulfillment comes from making music yourself. I’d much rather hear your unique story and creative voice than anything a computer generates.

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Kevin Daoust is a guitarist, guitar educator and writer based in Gatineau, Quebec, Canada. When not tracking guitars for artists around the world or writing music-related articles online, he can be seen on stage with Accordion-Funk legends Hey, Wow, the acoustic duo Chanté et Kev, rock n’ rollers Travelling South, and as a hired-gun guitarist across Quebec and Ontario. He holds a Bachelor of Music in Guitar Performance from Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.