You are invited to choose a final project that best reflects your learning, curiosity, and creative or critical response to the themes we’ve explored this semester. Each option includes guidance, prompts, and a set of reflection questions.

  • See the library for possible sources to use in your reflection.
  • Also see the AI Tools overview if you want to use or critique the AI musical tools that we haven’t yet used in class.

Proposal Document⌗

Before beginning your final project, submit a brief proposal (approximately 1 page) explaining your chosen option and why it interests you. Include your initial ideas, goals, or questions you hope to explore. This proposal will help guide your process and our discussions.

Submit this in the final project proposal dropbox on D2L by 4/8/25 at 1 pm.

How You’ll Be Assessed: An Ungrading Approach⌗

This final project will not be assessed using a traditional rubric or checklist. Instead, your evaluation will be based entirely on your own reflection of what you aimed to accomplish, how you feel about your own growth, and what you learned through engaging creatively or critically with class materials and ideas.

In your 1–2 page reflection, clearly articulate:

  • Your intentions and goals: What did you set out to explore, create, or understand?
  • Your creative and critical process: Describe your journey, including key decisions, insights, and any challenges you encountered.
  • Your personal learning: How did this project contribute to your growth as a learner, thinker, or creator? What discoveries or surprises emerged?

Your reflection should demonstrate thoughtful effort and genuine engagement with the assignment. It’s not about perfection, but about curiosity, honesty, and meaningful interaction with the material.

I will respond to your reflection by offering written feedback that highlights your strengths, acknowledges your process, and celebrates your thoughtful engagement with the project.

Optional Grade Recommendation:

You may propose a letter grade that reflects your effort, creativity, and learning, along with a brief explanation. I will honor your suggested grade as long as your reflection thoughtfully aligns with the goals of the assignment.

If you prefer not to suggest a grade, I will assign one based solely on your reflection and demonstrated engagement.

Final Presentation⌗

You will present your project briefly to the class (approximately 5–7 minutes) during exam time. You can share your creative work, discuss your critical reflections, or explain key findings from your process. Your presentation will help your peers engage with your ideas and offer insights or questions.

Project Options:⌗

Humans vs. Machines: A Sound Essay⌗

  • Type: Creative or Critical
  • Prompt: Create an experimental audio piece or sonic essay that juxtaposes human-made and AI-generated music. Optionally include interviews or voice-overs. Reflect on what makes music feel “authentic” and how labor is involved in AI and human composition.
  • Related to concepts learned in Étude 1 - Sonic Poetry Generator - exploring sonic relationships and sound design through algorithmic or computational methods.

Reflection Questions:

  • What drew you to the topic?
  • What choices did you make to highlight differences or similarities between AI and human expression?
  • What new questions emerged from making this piece?

Remix Ethics: An Audio Collage & Legal Analysis⌗

  • Type: Creative + Critical
  • Prompt: Create a remix or sound collage using AI-generated or public domain samples. Accompany it with an analysis of originality and ownership in the age of AI.
  • Related to concepts learned in Étude 2 - Audio Mosaic - using audio features and sample-based retrieval to critically explore originality, ownership, and remix culture.

Reflection Questions:

  • How did you choose your sources and why?
  • What tensions or contradictions did you discover about copyright, authorship, or remix culture?
  • What do you think needs to change in the music industry to reflect current realities?

Hidden Layers: Sonifying AI’s Feature Space⌗

  • Type: Creative or Experimental
  • Prompt: Sonify or creatively use features from machine listening models (e.g., MFCCs, spectral centroid). Build a piece or system that explores how machines “hear.”

Related to concepts learned in:

  • Étude 1 - Sonic Poetry Generator – mapping relationships between textual or sonic features and musical outcomes.
  • Étude 2 - Audio Mosaic – using extracted audio features (MFCCs, spectral features) creatively in sonic composition.

Reflection Questions:

  • What did you learn by working with audio features directly?
  • Did the machine’s perception align with your own?
  • How do features limit or expand musical creativity?

The Artist in the Machine: A Sonic Fiction⌗

  • Type: Creative Narrative
  • Prompt: Create a speculative podcast or sound story imagining a future where AI reshapes music, labor, or identity. Mix narrative, fictional tools, and sound design.
  • Inspiration
    • Film: Her (2013), Ex Machina (2014), Blade Runner 2049 (2017)

Reflection Questions:

  • What future did you imagine, and why?
  • How did you use audio to bring your ideas to life?
  • What values guided your vision of this future?

Personal Toolkit for AI Music Creation⌗

  • Type: Portfolio + Reflection
  • Prompt: Create 3–5 short sketches using different AI Tools. For each, reflect on your process and experience. For this project choose the tools that allow for co-creation. You can present these in any form (audio, video, web, etc.).

Related to concepts learned in:

  • Étude 2 - Audio Mosaic – practically experimenting with audio features and exploring their creative potential and limitations.
  • Étude 3 - Interactive Machine Learning with Wekinator – using interactive machine learning tools to develop personalized approaches to music creation.

Reflection Questions:

  • What did you try, and what did you learn from each experiment?
  • Which tools inspired you? Which didn’t?
  • How would you explain your toolkit to someone new to this topic?

AI Listening Journal & Creative Response⌗

  • Type: Critical + Creative
  • Prompt: Keep a journal of your responses to AI music over several weeks. Then, create a short essay in response to one work that moved you, annoyed you, or changed your thinking.
    • Feel free to create your own AI music from Udio or Suno, or use some that already exists elsewhere on the internet.

Reflection Questions:

  • What emotions or ideas did AI music provoke in you?
  • Did your thinking shift over time?
  • What is missing in this AI generated music vs music made by humans?
  • How did you channel your response into your final work?

Collaborative Experiment: What Happens If…⌗

  • Type: Group-Based Creative Inquiry
  • Prompt: Work in a small group to design and test an absurd, speculative, or playful musical experiment. Follow the thread of a weird question — what if an AI composed only with bird calls? What if a model misunderstood genre entirely?
  • Related to concepts learned in Étude 3 - Interactive Machine Learning with Wekinator – collaboratively exploring creative and experimental interactions between human inputs and machine-generated sound outputs.

Reflection Questions:

  • What was your initial question or spark?
  • What did you discover through trying?
  • What felt fun, frustrating, or unexpected?

Resisting the Machine: A Critical Response to AI and Music⌗

  • Type: Critical, Reflective, or Hybrid
  • Prompt: If you didn’t like the class or didn’t connect with AI and music, this is your space. Write a critique, create an artwork, or build a sound collage that expresses your concerns or discomfort. Your goal is not to please but to think deeply and honestly.
  • Inspiration: A musical supergroup fights AI — with a silent protest album
  • Related to concepts learned in:
    • Étude 2 - Audio Mosaic – critically examining how the reliance on computationally extracted audio features might influence or limit creative expression and musical authenticity.
    • Étude 3 - Interactive Machine Learning with Wekinator – critically reflecting on the challenges, limitations, or alienation experienced when working with interactive machine learning tools and AI-driven musical outcomes.

Reflection Questions:

  • What felt alienating or unconvincing about AI and music?
  • Did anything change your view, even slightly?
  • What kind of musical future do you hope for?

Final Submission Requirements:

  • Your creative or critical work (format is flexible)
  • A short written reflection (1–2 pages or equivalent)
  • Optional: any process notes, sketches, or code you’d like to include