Ethics
Transparency is part of the craft
AI Music Promposing only earns trust if it is honest about itself. These are the working principles of this vocabulary.
Working principles
01
Disclose the method
Listeners deserve to know how music came into being. Naming AI involvement costs nothing and protects everyone downstream.
02
Describe contribution honestly
Neither inflate nor erase what you did. Prompting, selecting, revising, and releasing are real acts; they are not the same as writing a melody.
03
Respect living artists
Do not imitate a specific living artist's voice or identity, and do not present generated work as theirs.
04
Credit traditions
Musical languages come from communities. Name the tradition you are drawing on rather than flattening it into a genre tag.
05
Keep authorship legible
Copyright protection depends on human authorship. Documenting your decisions is both ethical and practical.
How much of this was human?
Contribution is a spectrum, not a yes or no.
Level 3
Directing
The person changes style, structure, emotion, lyrics, instrumentation, or performance.
Typical human actions
- Rewrites prompts with musical specificity
- Directs emotional arc and song form
- Requests revisions until the work says what was meant
Typical AI actions
- Re-renders sections under direction
- Applies requested instrumentation and performance changes
- Example workflow
- Draft a structure → direct verse-chorus contrast → request a restrained drum entry → revise the ending → approve.
- Transparency recommendation
- Describe the direction given: structure, emotion, instrumentation, and revisions.
- Fictional example
- Demonstration example: a church musician directs a hymn arrangement so the piano sounds certain while the voice stays unconvinced.
What should I call myself?
Composer
Creates or substantially shapes musical expression, including melody, harmony, rhythm, lyrics, form, orchestration, or other musical elements.
Transparency label
Generate a disclosure line to include in your release notes. Stays on this device.
This work using generative AI.