Scholarly Work
Human–AI Co-Creation in Melody Writing: A MIDI-Native Pilot on Flow, Authorship, and Control
2025 · 18 pages · Researcher
This research examines how different compositional workflows shape creative flow, authorship, and stylistic control in human-AI music making. It introduces a MIDI-native co-writing system designed to compare human-only, AI-only, and iterative human-AI workflows using a shared melodic seed and reproducible symbolic outputs. Through a small within-subjects pilot study with trained musicians, the work shows that human-only composition affords the strongest sense of authorship, AI-only generation maximizes novelty at the expense of control, and iterative co-creation restores creative momentum while preserving expressive intent. Together, these findings suggest that workflow structure plays a critical role in shaping creative experience and offers a foundation for evaluating agency-preserving co-creative music tools.
Selected Creative Works
Original Compositions with Analytical Commentary
These works span multiple compositional contexts, from pop and big band writing to film scoring and musique concrète. Rather than treating genre as a fixed identity, I use it as a set of constraints that frame questions of structure, control, and authorship. The brief notes below point to the musical ideas and decisions that shape each piece.
Total runtime 20:14
“Brass and Blackmail (Main Title Theme)”
2024 · Duration 3:06 · Composer, Producer
This piece draws on a 1940s–1950s crime drama idiom, using big band orchestration and blues-derived harmony as its structural foundation. The main theme is introduced on piano and organ, built over a groove-centric twelve-bar bass line that anchors the piece stylistically and harmonically. Rhythmic motion is deliberately restrained, with rim-tapped snare and hi-hat articulating a clave-like pulse that leaves space for harmonic and melodic development. As the form unfolds, the theme expands through sectional layering, with French horns leading the brass to heighten dramatic weight. A contrasting bridge departs from the blues framework, using tritone relationships and rapid key shifts to create instability before resolving with a classic V7 sting that reinforces the period style.
“Walking Disaster”
2025 · Duration 3:41 · Composer, Producer
This piece is built around a static, groove-centered framework in which rhythmic feel carries structural weight. Programmed beats are layered with a live drum kit playing a shuffle feel, creating tension between straight and swung subdivisions while maintaining a stable metric grid. Harmony is treated as a sustained field, carried primarily by synthesizers, allowing rhythmic nuance and melodic contour to drive form. The vocal melody draws on blues-inflected gestures within a new wave context, emphasizing phrasing over harmonic change. Rather than using a traditional bridge, the song shapes contrast through shifts in density and intensity, with increased drumming energy articulating the track’s sense of instability.
“The Docks (Film Cue)”
2024 · Duration 2:01 · Composer, Producer
This piece is conceived as an orchestral composition that bridges early twentieth-century symphonic language, particularly Holst, with a restrained modern sound world. Orchestral strings and brass form the harmonic and textural foundation, with electric bass, guitar, and subtle synthetic color used sparingly to situate the music in a contemporary setting. Harmony centers on recurring ii–V motion, chosen not for functional momentum but to sustain tension and defer resolution. The tempo sits just below peak physiological arousal, maintaining energy without triggering release and allowing motion to accumulate beneath the surface. Form is articulated through orchestration and harmonic pressure rather than melodic foregrounding, aligning the music with a sense of anticipation and forward drive.
“The Real Me”
2024 · Duration 3:28 · Composer, Producer
This piece explores musical duality through groove, harmony, and melodic contour. Built on a bass-led groove with roots in Latin rock and jazz-influenced funk, the track establishes a steady rhythmic foundation that contrasts with a harmonically ambiguous surface. Harmony is carried by synthesizers and angular guitar lines, using an uncommon pairing of scales to create a blues-inflected color that feels both grounded and unsettled. The vocal melody is deliberately moody and restrained, emphasizing contour and phrasing over harmonic resolution to mirror the song’s tension between competing identities. Rather than resolving this contrast, the arrangement sustains it, allowing groove and timbre to articulate the piece’s central sense of instability.
“Tell Me”
2024 · Duration 3:49 · Composer, Producer
Written in 7/4, this piece uses asymmetrical meter as an expressive tool within a pop framework. A repeating bass groove anchors the seven-beat cycle while maintaining a sense of tension and forward motion. The vocal melody remains largely static and triadic, allowing the irregular meter to stay perceptible without sacrificing accessibility. Alternating vocal lines between performers adds a call-and-response dimension that reinforces the lyric’s shared perspective. Production choices emphasize rhythmic clarity and grit, reinforcing meter as a structural element rather than smoothing it away.
“Musique Concrète for Breakfast”
2025 · Duration 1:07 · Composer, Producer
This piece is a short-form musique concrète composition built entirely from forty recorded sounds captured during the preparation of breakfast. Rather than using pitch or harmony in a traditional sense, the work organizes time and gesture through repetition, transformation, and spatial movement. Sounds are stretched, compressed, looped, reversed, and pitch-shifted to create a sense of narrative progression, allowing familiar actions to unfold as musical events. Automation and panning articulate form by guiding attention across the stereo field, while reverb is used to shift perceived distance and intimacy. Within a sixty-second duration, the piece constructs a coherent morning scene, treating everyday sound as compositional material and storytelling as a function of sonic structure.
“Vibes”
2025 · Duration 3:02 · Composer, Producer
This piece blends an 808-driven drum foundation with a jazz-inflected groove, using rhythmic feel as the primary engine of motion. The arrangement is built around a call-and-response design between acoustic guitar and a fuzzed synth voice, treating timbral contrast as a form-defining device. Harmony remains intentionally stable, allowing groove, articulation, and phrase-level exchange to carry forward momentum. A dedicated bridge led by guitar provides formal release and structural contrast before returning to the core groove. Spatial depth and layered vocals support the sense of expansion without changing the underlying rhythmic and harmonic center.