Summary & Key Takeaways ​

• Simon Willison tasked Claude Opus 5.5 with composing computer game music.
• The LLM also designed a text-based format for the music and example tracks.
• The generated music was surprisingly competent, reminiscent of "Monkey Island."
• This experiment suggests a potential new emergent capability for text models in music composition.
• Further research is needed to confirm if this is a recent development in LLM abilities.

Our Commentary ​

This is genuinely cool. An LLM composing music, and doing it well? That's a capability I hadn't fully anticipated. It makes me wonder if we're seeing another emergent property, similar to how 3D graphics generation improved. The idea of "vibe-coding" music with an AI is both exciting and a little bit terrifying.