About
Van Setten Music is the label under which I, Mark van Setten, compose and release music. For a few years now, I've been composing music, though it started as a fun hobby and I never considered myself a professional composer. I began by writing instrumental songs based on melodies I stumbled upon while playing around on the piano. I started jotting down those melodies and gradually added chords and accompaniments. Then, I used music programs on my Mac to refine them into instrumental demos with digital instruments. I even wrote lyrics for some of the songs. Since I'm not a gifted pianist or singer, I never saw it go any further, which made me lose a bit of interest in developing more of the melodies I wrote down.
But then, artificial intelligence arrived, making it easy for people to create "music." This really caught my attention, and I started exploring these new tools. I discovered that I could use them to transform my instrumental demos into more complete songs. And by adding the lyrics I wrote, I could even include virtual singers in those songs. So, I began reimagining some of my older demos and lyrics into more complete songs using these AI tools. This led to a few demos of songs that I'm quite happy with, which I'll share here over time.
I intentionally put music in quotation marks above because I'm still unsure if everything created by those AI music tools should be considered real music, especially since they also allow people to simply type in a prompt like "Make me a pop song about <topic>" and it generates a full "song." For me, those AI programs are more tools to create more fully developed demos of my compositions. Demos that go beyond what I could ever achieve in the past. (I have, of course, also had some fun with by generating "songs" from scratch as a party piece)
As the best way to protect my compositions is to actually release the songs and register them with a performing rights organization, I will release my songs on streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music. For this, I use several AI artists as I use several different voices for my songs, voices that I feel best fit the style and content of each song. You can find these virtual Artist on this site, an each will also have their own site. So if you especially like a certain voice I am using, you can easily find all songs that use that voice.
When someone asks me, "What kind of music do you write?" it's a bit tricky because I'm still discovering different styles. I'm experimenting with everything from heartfelt ballads and Irish/Celtic tunes to Americana-style pop and orchestral pieces. Some songs might even be considered contemporary classical. Basically, it's a blend of all the styles I enjoy. I try to pick the style that best suits the theme of a specific song.
If you'd like to give me feedback, please feel free to do so on YouTube or send me a message on one of the social platforms I use. You can find links to them in the contact section below.