The Method — representation model
Living spec. This is where we refine the model; the PoC implements it once the spec is stable.
0. Founding principle
The product = the method, not the audio or the prompt. A fusion is described once, independently of any model; a compiler renders it to a target. Suno / Udio / MusicGen / a human musician = interchangeable backends.
1. Two layers
A fusion isn't only sound — it's also words, and the text fuses too (liturgical Latin over a secular kick; Portuguese saudade over dub). Two co-equal layers:
- Sound: groove, harmony, instrumentation, production, tempo/feel, tension.
- Text: language, themes/content, concept/détournement, lyrics (compiled output, in the required language).
2. Three registers
Every claim (sound or text) belongs to a register. Conflating them is the error to avoid.
| Register | Nature | Source | Falsifiable | Role at render |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| musicological | structural fact (tempo, mode, instrumentation, genre traits, language/convention) | musicologist / expert practitioner | yes (true/false) | constraints |
| felt (ressenti) | subjective experience (beautiful, "it works", recognition, emotion) | any listener | no (held, not true) | intent / mood |
| political | values / worldview (what the gesture says) | an owned, attributed position | no, but must be coherent | meaning / structural choices |
3. Attribution — positions, not truths
Every claim carries its source. The musicological can be true or false (an expert decides); the felt and the political are held, not true. A genre atom = a bundle of attributed positions, contestable. Two curators may diverge: the engine holds both.
4. Atoms & molecules
- Atom = a genre. Carries: description (by register), constraints (conventions, e.g. fado→Portuguese), exemplars (reference tracks + who recognizes them). Fixing an atom fixes all its fusions.
- Molecule = a fusion of two atoms.
The curation lever is the atom (~600 genres), not the molecule (360,000 fusions). A badly-defined Footwork poisons its 600 crossings; fixed once, it repairs them all.
5. Guardrails
- Sound: musicological coherence (an expert).
- Text: plagiarism, explicit content, real-artist imitation, pronunciation, voice authenticity.
6. The political vision (register 3)
Full text: Political Vision
Engine room, not lyrics. Enacted in the crossings, the license, the forgery — almost never said.
- Authenticity = power (Debord): we forge the real to expose that it is certified, not essential.
- Against enclosure, for the commons (Lessig, Albini): free engine, AGPL. Name the fences; refuse the parasite.
- Creolization, not flattening (Glissant): fertile friction against the smoothie / the slop.
- Right to opacity (Glissant): the unclassifiable against total legibility; illegibility as resistance.
- No clean outside — self-implication (Debord): we use the enemy's weapons and we say so.
- Meaning over content (Schaeffer): the human ear against throughput — the sound object, not the description.
Two coherence tests (per crossing / text):
- Does it creolize (fertile friction) or flatten (slop)?
- Does it preserve opacity (irreducible) or hand culture to the machine (clean extraction)?
7. Two meta-guardrails
- Form, not sermon. Politics lives in the gesture, not in preachy lyrics. (Debord: détournement, not decoration.)
- The ear judges, not the theory. (Schaeffer: l'écoute réduite.) A coherence that doesn't sound good is dead. The circle decides quality; Glissant won't save a boring track.
8. The curator roster (by register)
- musicological → a musicologist / expert practitioner.
- felt → the circle of listeners.
- text → lyricists + guardrails.
- political → the author: the vision is owned and attributed.
Full decision process and counter-voice portraits: Personas & Decision Process.