I might have a different take, but the introduction of ChatGPT last year actually prompted me to dive head first into learning an instrument aided also by a fantastic live performance by Yo-Yo Ma.
In one interview I watched, Yo-Yo said he strived to play pieces perfect until his 20s when in the middle of a concert he realized he was playing perfectly and it was boring. From that moment he decided to dedicate his musical performances to making a connection with the audience. His concert was incredible to experience a room of 1000 people all having their seats shaken by a human being bowing a string without any electronics involved. People were getting drawn in, then jumping back, and getting transported outside the physical. Hard to describe.
And that was when i realized that no matter how perfect a computer plays, humans will always want to hear other humans play. We have had player pianos for over a century and not to mention a long history of sculptures that play music and even now you can get a virtually unlimited amount of extremely high quality near perfect replication recording of the best performances out there.
But still, I just went to buy tickets to a classical music event on a monday night to a solo concert by a not-famous player that each seat cost around $100 and they were sold out.
For me personally, learning an instrument has been a tremendous experience. Even the interaction with my teacher gives me weekly human contact that has become scarce in the post-covid world filled with remote work.
Spending months of practice just to play a song poorly is actually an incredibly freeing and humbling experience. I had my recital with a bunch of people watching me, where I messed up, I played out of tune, but it was an incredible flood of human connection that i never really had prior.
I think worrying about AI taking over music is overblown. Unless the music is going to be generated to manipulate people somehow, but the reality is that in 100 years people will still crave live performances. Just like for the past 100 years, paradoxically, the access and lowered barriers of entry, has actually increased accessed to classical and live performances. People complaining that people today don’t like “music with passion” anymore are living in some fairytale land where they imagine every single person 200 years ago was skipping down to the opera house. The reality was that 200 years ago access to music was incredibly limited and most people only experienced it in church context. If that (rural churches had a lot less going on musically).
People will always crave to see other humans’ accomplishments. Music, paintings, etc are not just an end product, but the more you understand the difficulties and journey of the person producing it, the deeper your appreciation becomes.