How to Follow a Drummer: Teaching Machines to Listen Instead of Lead

How to Follow a Drummer

I built DrumMate to reverse the usual dynamic where musicians follow machines. Instead of rigid click tracks, my system uses a phase-locked loop to let the drummer lead, treating hits as evidence rather than commands. By distinguishing between human feel and actual tempo drift, the software glides with the groove instead of snapping to a grid, finally teaching machines the musicianly thing.

"This whole problem is really about teaching the machines the musicianly thing, instead of making the humans play machinely."