Between 2005 and 2007, in my twenties, I was immersed in music. During my final semester of college as a computer science major, I happened to listen to 손지연(Son Ji-yeon)‘s first album, 실화 (My Life’s Story). She is an indie folk singer-songwriter who writes songs that weave poems and stories into simple yet beautiful music. I had always loved music and had sung part-time briefly, but listening to this album was the first time I thought about taking it more seriously.
I went to her performances with a yellow freesia bouquet because of her song 노란 꽃 두송이(Two Yellow Flowers), and she welcomed me into her circle. I sang a few songs before her performances at Texas Moon for a few months, and many musical experiences followed. The fictional guide of my creative journey at that time was Ursula K. Le Guin, Natalie in Very Far Away from Anywhere Else. Be true to yourself, commit to your work with discipline, and find your own people.
Alongside this, I was a master’s student at the Digital Media Lab (DML), where students created digital media artworks and prototyped future technologies. Within its interdisciplinary environment, each student brought their own innovative technology projects to life. There, I discovered the emerging field of Music Information Retrieval (MIR). I focused primarily on automatic music generation during my master’s program. You can find my first master’s thesis proposal slides, “Automatic Music Composition Algorithm using Regression and an Emotion Plane.” In the end, however, I completed my master’s thesis on Automatic Music Mood Classification, which offered more objective evaluation criteria.
I explored both music and MIR in parallel, but eventually chose MIR, a field at the intersection of music and computing. After working as a programmer for a few years, I moved to the United States to pursue a PhD in MIR under the guidance of J. Stephen Downie, a founder of ISMIR and the director of MIREX, both of which have fostered a global MIR community. There, I was trained as a researcher and educator in Library and Information Science, an interdisciplinary, human-centered discipline with a strong focus on community engagement and service.
All of these past experiences have come together to shape my research, which is grounded in love for music and the literary arts and carried out through computational methods, including Machine Learning, Signal Processing, and NLP, in digital and public library contexts. My research seeks to understand the beauty of music, poetry, and lyrics, and to use technology to help people engage more deeply with the arts. Influenced by my training in the digital media lab, I value learning by making. In light of recent advancements in AI, I work to shape these AI technologies so that they support the creation and appreciation of the arts rather than stand in the way.
I’m writing this because my CV mainly covers the period after I started my PhD, but my earlier life in Korea has also influenced my research. Below, I’m sharing a few recordings from around twenty years ago. On most of them, I sang, with Minje Kim playing all the instruments. I’m glad we recorded these, since our daughter enjoys listening to them these days.
Take Me Home, Country Roads – John Denver Whisper of the Heart
날 기억하니 – Kahyun Choi in an album by Copy Hero, a fellow programmer at Naver. I really appreciate him letting me post his songs here
I YA – Copy Hero (feat. Kahyun Choi, Hanjin Lee (a former colleague at Naver)), the background vocals start at 2:13
잊어야 한다는 마음으로 – 김광석
Oh My Love – John Lennon April 2005, two months into learning the guitar, singing while playing, with plenty of pauses and mistakes.
A Love That Will Never Grow Old – Emmylou Harris Brokeback Mountain
다짐 – 최가현(Kahyun Choi) October 2006, I wrote the lyrics, and our friend Jongwook composed the song.
고양이 왈츠 – 밴드 진실 Minje composed the song.
Falling Slowly – Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová Once
Perfect – Fairground Attraction
김밥 – 손지연 and 양병집 at Texas Moon, 2006
Your Song – Elton John, a song chosen by our friend Hyungbaek, the groom, and sung in 2011 at his wedding. Not sure his Korean guests liked this English song, though.