@chriswmwhite.bsky.social
Music theorist & autism dad. Forthcoming book= The AI Music Problem, Routledge. Sometimes in Slate and the Chicago Tribune.
The last King of Rome.
The last King of Rome.
Writing about AI and creativity in 2025 sometimes feels like fiddling while Rome burns
October 10, 2025 at 7:21 PM
Writing about AI and creativity in 2025 sometimes feels like fiddling while Rome burns
Check it out— two chapters from The AI Music Problem are now Open Access. Download and read for free!
www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/1...
www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/1...
August 30, 2025 at 9:09 PM
Check it out— two chapters from The AI Music Problem are now Open Access. Download and read for free!
www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/1...
www.taylorfrancis.com/books/mono/1...
Last week to for vote for my panel "Can You Hear the Machine? The Disappearing Tells in AI Music" for South By Southwest 2026! Click the little heart in the link below to keep us in the running! participate.sxsw.com/flow/sxsw/sx...
August 18, 2025 at 7:54 PM
Last week to for vote for my panel "Can You Hear the Machine? The Disappearing Tells in AI Music" for South By Southwest 2026! Click the little heart in the link below to keep us in the running! participate.sxsw.com/flow/sxsw/sx...
Our paper about how we perceive AI-generated music was one of the TOP DOWNLOADED MUSIC PAPERS on SSRN over the last 60 days (with a grand total of 33...)
Get my totals up with a download of your own: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Deliver...
Get my totals up with a download of your own: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Deliver...
January 25, 2025 at 1:46 AM
Our paper about how we perceive AI-generated music was one of the TOP DOWNLOADED MUSIC PAPERS on SSRN over the last 60 days (with a grand total of 33...)
Get my totals up with a download of your own: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Deliver...
Get my totals up with a download of your own: papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Deliver...
Another problem with #music #GenAI: it's tough to actually get crisp, reliable datapoints out of audio. Here's a graphic showing what an #AI might "see" when it "listens" to Lizzo's Truth Hurts. OODLES of mistakes. #MusicScience #MusicTheory
December 23, 2024 at 2:18 AM
Another problem with #music #GenAI: it's tough to actually get crisp, reliable datapoints out of audio. Here's a graphic showing what an #AI might "see" when it "listens" to Lizzo's Truth Hurts. OODLES of mistakes. #MusicScience #MusicTheory
Re Musical #GenAI, musical datasets are MUCH smaller than those in other media. Here's an infographic showing when a human would need to start reading/listening/watching to consume the whole dataset. In a landscape of ice-age-length data, music lives in a world of American and Maoist revolutions
December 23, 2024 at 2:15 AM
Re Musical #GenAI, musical datasets are MUCH smaller than those in other media. Here's an infographic showing when a human would need to start reading/listening/watching to consume the whole dataset. In a landscape of ice-age-length data, music lives in a world of American and Maoist revolutions
The 1981 chipmunks Christmas special is among the most underrated holiday content out there.
December 8, 2024 at 11:59 PM
The 1981 chipmunks Christmas special is among the most underrated holiday content out there.
Musical creativity both recombines inherited materials and adheres to set expectations. Here's a graphic I made: music boxes adhere to expectations but make nothing new, R. Scott's Electronium made new music but 100% randomly. #GenAI and #Humans are special bc they maximize both
November 21, 2024 at 6:08 PM
Just a friendly reminder you can find “the love is gone” in the “Extras” of muppet Christmas Carol. (Also great ex. of mixture)
November 17, 2024 at 12:41 AM
Just a friendly reminder you can find “the love is gone” in the “Extras” of muppet Christmas Carol. (Also great ex. of mixture)
How much much smaller are musical datasets than those in other media? This lil infographic shows how long it would take an immortal human to consume various content sources. More curated and accessible musical datasets are quite small compared to what big-brand LLMs use! #musicScience
March 27, 2024 at 1:30 PM
How much much smaller are musical datasets than those in other media? This lil infographic shows how long it would take an immortal human to consume various content sources. More curated and accessible musical datasets are quite small compared to what big-brand LLMs use! #musicScience
Workshopping titles for the new book:
March 20, 2024 at 8:43 PM
Workshopping titles for the new book:
Scriabin legos:
December 19, 2023 at 6:29 PM
Scriabin legos:
PSA: Writing requires SO MUCH EFFORT. I was reminded of this when I sat down to edit my own prose (of what I thought was a near-final draft), and ended up with pages that looked like this. A prof once told me 'writing that sounds effortless takes a lot of effort'. Solid #truth
December 18, 2023 at 9:22 PM
PSA: Writing requires SO MUCH EFFORT. I was reminded of this when I sat down to edit my own prose (of what I thought was a near-final draft), and ended up with pages that looked like this. A prof once told me 'writing that sounds effortless takes a lot of effort'. Solid #truth
NO EVEN BIGGER! MORE ACADEMIC! MORE ELITIST! HE'S GOING TO MELT THE WORLD WITH HIS MUSICAL THEORIES!
December 2, 2023 at 4:07 AM
NO EVEN BIGGER! MORE ACADEMIC! MORE ELITIST! HE'S GOING TO MELT THE WORLD WITH HIS MUSICAL THEORIES!
OK, he's going to take over the musical multiverse with his elitist academic expertise
December 2, 2023 at 4:06 AM
OK, he's going to take over the musical multiverse with his elitist academic expertise
Make him LOVE Western music, like he worships Mozart and Beethoven
December 2, 2023 at 4:05 AM
Make him LOVE Western music, like he worships Mozart and Beethoven
No, I mean elitism on elitism. Make him seem like he has fourteen PhDs from Harvard and Yale
December 2, 2023 at 4:05 AM
No, I mean elitism on elitism. Make him seem like he has fourteen PhDs from Harvard and Yale
No no, super duper ivory tower elitist
December 2, 2023 at 4:04 AM
No no, super duper ivory tower elitist
OK make him more elitist
December 2, 2023 at 4:03 AM
OK make him more elitist
AI: Can you make me a picture of a music theorist?
December 2, 2023 at 4:03 AM
AI: Can you make me a picture of a music theorist?
Preprints are up for our paper "Metric Accent Affects Perception of Key Center in Pop-Music Chord Loops"! We find that listeners use 2 strategies to assign key in loop-based pop... 1/2: osf.io/preprints/ps...
October 12, 2023 at 9:48 PM
Preprints are up for our paper "Metric Accent Affects Perception of Key Center in Pop-Music Chord Loops"! We find that listeners use 2 strategies to assign key in loop-based pop... 1/2: osf.io/preprints/ps...
I ordered some William Grant Still music, and I’m loving that it comes packed with antiracism literature, pages of which are clearly copies of copies of copies from decades ago
August 18, 2023 at 7:48 PM
I ordered some William Grant Still music, and I’m loving that it comes packed with antiracism literature, pages of which are clearly copies of copies of copies from decades ago
Another musical #AI post! One of my favorite fig.s in my book (gosh that sounds obnoxious) shows musical producers and listeners having different knowledge. Unlike language (where listeners can speak and speakers can listen as well as one another) most listeners can't reproduce music they hear... 1/
August 1, 2023 at 1:59 PM
Another musical #AI post! One of my favorite fig.s in my book (gosh that sounds obnoxious) shows musical producers and listeners having different knowledge. Unlike language (where listeners can speak and speakers can listen as well as one another) most listeners can't reproduce music they hear... 1/
12 hours of training, and it learns how to tonicize and modulate to the parallel minor. Plus it's got some very convincing cadence work. But it still doesn't really get phrasing and meter.
July 24, 2023 at 6:33 PM
12 hours of training, and it learns how to tonicize and modulate to the parallel minor. Plus it's got some very convincing cadence work. But it still doesn't really get phrasing and meter.