As one of many first college students in MIT’s new Music Expertise and Computation Graduate Program, Mariano Salcedo ’25 is researching the intersection between synthetic intelligence and music visuals.
Particularly, his graduate analysis focuses on neural mobile automata (NCA), which merges classical mobile automata with machine studying methods to develop photographs that may regenerate.
When paired with a stimulus like music, these photographs can “present” sounds in motion.
“This method permits anybody to create music-driven visuals whereas leveraging the expressive and typically unpredictable dynamics of self-organized methods,” Salcedo says. By the net interface Salcedo has designed, customers can regulate the connection between the music’s vitality and the NCA system to create distinctive visible performances utilizing any music audio stream.
“I need the visuals to enhance and elevate the listening expertise,” he says.
Final yr Salcedo, the Alex Rigopulos (1992) Fellow in Music Expertise and Computation, earned a BS in synthetic intelligence and choice making from MIT, the place he explored sign processing in machine studying and the way a classical understanding of alerts can inform how we perceive AI. Now he’s one among 5 grasp’s college students within the Music Expertise and Computation Graduate Program’s inaugural cohort.
This system, directed by professor of the apply in music expertise Eran Egozy ’93, MNG ’95, is a collaboration between MIT Music and Theater Arts within the Faculty of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, and the Faculty of Engineering. It invitations practitioners to check, uncover, and develop new computational approaches to music. It additionally features a speaker sequence that exposes college students and the broader MIT neighborhood to music trade professionals, artists, technologists, and different researchers.
Rigopulos ’92, SM ’94, is a online game designer, musician, and former CEO of Harmonix Music Methods, an organization he co-founded with Egozy in 1995. Harmonix is now part of Epic Video games, the place Rigopulos is the director of recreation growth for music.
“MIT is the place I used to be first capable of pursue my ardour for music expertise many years in the past, and that have was the springboard for a protracted and fulfilling profession,” says Rigopulos. “So, when MIT launched a sophisticated diploma program in music expertise, I used to be thrilled to fund a fellowship to assist propel this thrilling new program.”
Egozy is smitten by Salcedo’s work and his dedication to additional exploring its prospects. “He’s a lovely instance of a multidisciplinary researcher who thinks deeply about methods to finest use expertise to reinforce and increase human creativity,” he says.
Salcedo has been chosen to ship the scholar deal with on the 2026 Superior Diploma Ceremony for the Faculty of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences. “It’s an honor and it’s daunting,” he says. “It looks like an enormous accountability,” although one he’s desperate to embrace. His choice additionally pleases Egozy. “I’m tremendous excited that Maraino was chosen to ship this yr’s keynote,” he enthuses.
Altering gears
Rising up in Mexico and Texas, Mariano Salcedo couldn’t readily indulge his ardour for creating music. “There are not any bands in Mexican public faculties,” he says. Whereas some households might pay for devices and classes, others like Salcedo’s had been much less lucky.
“I’ve all the time liked music,” he continues. “I used to be a listener.”
Salcedo started his MIT journey as a mechanical engineering pupil, making use of to MIT via the Questbridge program. “I heard in case you like engineering and science that attending MIT could be an amazing alternative,” he recollects. “Nerds are welcomed and embraced.” Whereas he dutifully labored towards finishing his MechE curriculum, music and expertise got here calling after an opportunity encounter with an LLM.
“I used to be launched to an LLM chatbot and was blown away,” he recollects. “This was one thing that was talking to me. I used to be each awed and frightened.” After his encounter with the chatbot, Salcedo switched his main from mechanical engineering to synthetic intelligence and choice making.
“I mainly began over after being two thirds of the best way via the MechE curriculum,” he says. He discovered in regards to the prospects accessible with AI but additionally confronted a number of the challenges bedeviling researchers and builders together with its potential energy, making certain its accountable use, human bias, restricted entry for folks from underrepresented teams, and a scarcity of variety amongst builders. He determined he would possibly have the ability to change that image.
“I assumed another individual within the area might make a distinction,” he says.
Whereas finishing his undergraduate research, Salcedo’s love of music resurfaced. “I started DJ’ing at MIT and was hooked,” he says. Whereas he hadn’t discovered to play a conventional instrument, he found he might create partaking soundscapes with expertise. “I purchased a digital audio work station to assist me make music,” he continues.
Egozy and Salcedo met in 2024 whereas Salcedo accomplished an Undergraduate Analysis Alternatives Program rotation as a recreation developer in Egozy’s lab. “He was extremely curious and has grown tremendously over a really brief time interval,” Egozy says. Egozy turned an off-the-cuff, although essential, mentor to Salcedo. “He brings nice vitality and thoughtfulness to his work, and to supporting others within the [music technology and computation graduate] program,” Egozy notes.
Salcedo additionally took a category with Egozy, 21M.385/21M.585/6.4450 (Interactive Music Methods), which additional fed his urge for food for the creativity he craved whereas additionally permitting him to indulge his fascination with music’s prospects. By benefiting from programs within the HASS curriculum, he additional developed his understanding of music principle and associated applied sciences.
“I took a category with professor Leslie Tilley, 21M.240 (Critically Pondering in Music), which helped set up a helpful framework for understanding music making,” he says, “whereas a category like 6.3000 (Sign Processing) helped me join instinct with science.”
Working throughout disciplines
Whereas Salcedo is keen about his music and his analysis, he’s additionally invested in constructing relationships along with his fellow college students. He’s a member of the fraternity Sigma Nu, the place he says he “discovered a house and neighborhood.” He additionally took a MISTI journey to Chile in summer time 2023, the place he performed music expertise analysis. Salcedo praises the tradition of camaraderie at MIT and is grateful for its affect on his work as a scholar. “MIT has taught me methods to study,” he says.
Professors inspired him to current his analysis and findings. He introduced his work — Synthetic Dancing Intelligence: Neural Mobile Automata for Visible Efficiency of Music — on the Affiliation for the Development of Synthetic Intelligence convention in Singapore in January 2026.
Salcedo believes his analysis can probably transfer past music visualization. “What if we might enhance the methods we mannequin self-organized methods?” he asks. “That’s, methods like multicellular organisms, flocks of birds, or societies that work together regionally however exhibit fascinating behaviors.” Any system, Salcedo says, the place the entire is greater than the sum of its components.
Creating the expertise used to design his utility can probably assist reply essential moral questions relating to AI’s continued growth and development. The trail to his work’s growth is each daunting and lonely, however these challenges feed his work ethic.
“It’s intimidating to pursue this path when the academy is at the moment targeted on LLMs,” he says. “Nevertheless it’s additionally essential to elucidate and discover the bottom expertise earlier than digging into extra nuanced work, which can assist audiences perceive it higher.” Understanding that he has the help of his professors helps Salcedo preserve pleasure for his concepts. “They solely ask that we floor our pursuits in analysis,” he says.
His investigations are impacting his work as a musician. “My music has gotten extra fascinating due to the courses I’m taking,” he says. He’s additionally desirous about understanding whose music the academy and the world hears, exploring biases towards Western music within the canon and exploring methods to scale back biases associated to which sorts of music are valued.
“The work we do as technologists is much much less subjective than we’re led to imagine,” he believes.
Salcedo is particularly grateful for the help he’s acquired throughout his time at MIT. “Program school encourage quite a lot of pursuits,” he says, “and ask us to advance our particular person goals relatively than specializing in theirs.” Throughout his time within the graduate program, he notes with enthusiasm how typically he’s been challenged to pursue his concepts.
In the end, Salcedo desires folks to expertise the enjoyment he feels working on the intersection of the humanities and the sciences. Music and expertise influence almost everybody. Inviting audiences into his laboratory as members within the artistic and analysis processes gives the identical type of satisfaction he will get from crafting an amazing beat or fixing for a thorny technical problem. Serving to audiences perceive his work’s worth fuels his drive to succeed.
“I need customers to really feel motion and discover sounds and their influence extra absolutely,” he says.
