How Music AI Is Useful: Engagements with Composers, Performers and Audiences

Critical but often overlooked research questions in artificial intelligence applied to music involve the impact of the results for music. How and to what extent does such research contribute to the domain of music? How are the resulting models useful for music practitioners? This article describes work arising from research engaging with composers, musicians and audiences to address such questions: two websites that make their AI models accessible to a wide audience and a professionally recorded album released to expert reviewers to gauge the plausibility of AI-generated material. The authors describe the use of their models as tools for cocreation. Evaluating AI research and music models in such ways illuminates their impact on music-making.