MI-MIDI: Mechanistic Interpretability of Text-to-MIDI Generation Models via Probing, Lenses and Steering
Mechanistic interpretability of music generation has concentrated on audio models, leaving symbolic models largely unexplored. We analyze two public text-to-MIDI systems of contrasting design: the purpose-built encoder--decoder text2midi and MIDI-LLM, a Llama~3.2~1B model extended with MIDI tokens using linear probing, the logit and tuned lenses, activation patching and difference-in-means steering. Across these methods, we recover musically meaningful structure and show how architecture shapes its formation and control. Pitch, instrumentation, harmony and texture are linearly decodable in both models. text2midi refines predictions gradually across depth, whereas MIDI-LLM works largely in...
| Authors | Jakub Poćwiardowski, Mateusz Modrzejewski |
|---|---|
| Primary category | cs.SD |
| Published | 6 August 2026 |
| Last updated at source | 6 August 2026 |
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