At the heart of the matter
ARTISTIC STATEMENT
I am a musician.
I have been a musician my entire life. I began at the piano as a child and never left. I studied seriously, performed professionally, taught, and spent decades inside music — learning it, living it, and sharing it with others. Music is not something I do. It is something I am.
So when I discovered AI music, I did not leave music behind. I followed it. AI is the newest instrument I have learned to play, and I approach it exactly as I have approached every instrument and every tradition before it — with discipline, with reverence, and with the intention of saying something true.
What I am reaching for is something specific: music that does not announce where it comes from. Not music without roots — music whose roots run so deep, and draw from so many traditions, that no single culture, genre, or demographic can claim it as exclusively their own. Every musical tradition humanity has ever produced is a expression of the same interior life dressed in different clothing. I want to make music that speaks to that interior life directly — beneath genre, beneath geography, beneath identity. Music that anyone, anywhere, might hear and feel that it was made for them.
This is not a compromise. It is not a flattening. It is the opposite — it is a commitment to the full depth and breadth of what music has always been capable of doing.
I create music that is warm, emotionally honest, melodically rich, and deeply human. That has always been my standard, and it remains my standard now. The tool has changed. The commitment has not.
I want to say something plainly about AI music, because it deserves plain speech.
AI music systems have been trained on an extraordinary archive — the recorded and documented musical output of human civilization across centuries, cultures, and countless named and unnamed artists. That training happened, in most cases, without the knowledge or consent of the artists whose work was included. Those artists deserve credit. They deserve compensation. Music is not a commodity, and it should never be treated as one.
I cannot undo what has already been trained. What I can do is create with full awareness of that debt. I approach every tradition I draw from with genuine respect. I support living artists and live music actively. And I advocate for a future where consent and compensation are built into these systems from the start — not as an afterthought, but as a foundation.
I believe that music is one of the most important things in human life — not as entertainment, not as background, but as a primary way that human beings make sense of their experience and connect with one another. I believe that a thriving musical culture is inseparable from a healthy society. And I believe that something important is lost when music becomes purely passive — something we consume rather than something we participate in.
So I want to ask something of you directly.
Make music. Learn to sing. Pick up an instrument. Return to intentional listening — put something on and actually listen to it, the way you would give your attention to anything that matters. Go to live concerts. Support living musicians. Buy their recordings. Show up for them. The presence of working, performing artists in a community is not a luxury. It is a measure of that community's vitality.
My music is here for you if it speaks to you. If it does not, that is completely fine — move along, no harm done. I am not trying to convince anyone of anything. But if it does reach you, I hope it sends you back toward music itself — toward making it, seeking it out, and taking it seriously as a part of your life.
That is what this is for.
— JMI, Minneapolis, August 2026