The Certificate of Embodied Production

What This Certificate Affirms

This certificate marks recordings that preserve the irreplaceable elements of human musical expression: timing that breathes, decisions made in real-time, and the weight of commitment to choices as they unfold. When you remove automation, you reintroduce presence. The variations in timing and phrasing aren’t imperfections. They are the form through which meaning is made manifest.

Standards for Certification

• Preserves human timing: No grid-based quantization was used to align rhythmic performance

• Maintains human pitch: No pitch correction or auto-tuning was applied to vocal or instrumental performances

• Commits to decisions: Artists avoided "infinite undo" workflows, making choices and moving forward rather than endlessly revising

• Originates from human creativity: No generative AI was used for melodies, harmonies, lyrics, or musical stems

What This Allows

This standard permits the full range of modern recording techniques while preserving musical integrity. Artists may multitrack, edit, use digital effects, and work within DAWs. What matters is how the tools are used. The certificate distinguishes between technologies that support human choices and those that override them.

Why It Matters

In a time when music is increasingly shaped to serve algorithms rather than human connection, this certificate marks recordings that preserve music’s role as a vehicle for meaning, memory, and presence. These are qualities that do not survive automation as they arise only through embodied, time-bound creative practice.