Probing Music Generation Models for Encoding of Music Theory Concepts

Music generation models possess impressive generative capabilities, but the extent to which they encode fundamental Western music theory concepts within their internal representations remains unclear. This study introduces a synthetic dataset, SynTheory, to systematically probe the encoding of music theory concepts, including tempo, time signatures, notes, intervals, scales, chords, and chord progressions, in state-of-the-art music generation models such as Jukebox and MusicGen.