Opening Pandora's Box
The latest radio station to take the internet by storm, Pandora.com doesn't just play any old music. It's the fruit of The Music Genome Project, and as such, it uses sophisticated computer programming to play only music you love. And, it works.
I simply registered for a free account then typed in an artist whose music I wanted to hear. The magic of The Music Genome Project went to work and produced a playlist of similar music. In addition to playing lots of music I know and love, it introduced me to several artists I had never heard of before but am glad to have met.
In January of 2000, a group of musicians and music-loving technologists came together with the idea of creating the most comprehensive analysis of music ever. From the Pandora website:
Together we set out to capture the essence of music at the most fundamental level. We ended up assembling literally hundreds of musical attributes or "genes" into a very large Music Genome. Taken together these genes capture the unique and magical musical identity of a song - everything from melody, harmony and rhythm, to instrumentation, orchestration, arrangement, lyrics, and of course the rich world of singing and vocal harmony. It's not about what a band looks like, or what genre they supposedly belong to, or about who buys their records - it's about what each individual song sounds like.
Since we started back in 2000, we've carefully listened to the songs of tens of thousands of different artists - ranging from popular to obscure - and analyzed the musical qualities of each song one attribute at a time. This work continues each and every day as we endeavor to include all the great new stuff coming out of studios, clubs and garages around the world.
It has been quite an adventure, you could say a little crazy - but now that we've created this extraordinary collection of music analysis, we think we can help be your guide as you explore your favorite parts of the music universe.
Yay for Pandora! It even lets you give songs "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" to play more or less songs like that particular one, so it can learn from your preferences. Smart.
I simply registered for a free account then typed in an artist whose music I wanted to hear. The magic of The Music Genome Project went to work and produced a playlist of similar music. In addition to playing lots of music I know and love, it introduced me to several artists I had never heard of before but am glad to have met.
In January of 2000, a group of musicians and music-loving technologists came together with the idea of creating the most comprehensive analysis of music ever. From the Pandora website:
Together we set out to capture the essence of music at the most fundamental level. We ended up assembling literally hundreds of musical attributes or "genes" into a very large Music Genome. Taken together these genes capture the unique and magical musical identity of a song - everything from melody, harmony and rhythm, to instrumentation, orchestration, arrangement, lyrics, and of course the rich world of singing and vocal harmony. It's not about what a band looks like, or what genre they supposedly belong to, or about who buys their records - it's about what each individual song sounds like.
Since we started back in 2000, we've carefully listened to the songs of tens of thousands of different artists - ranging from popular to obscure - and analyzed the musical qualities of each song one attribute at a time. This work continues each and every day as we endeavor to include all the great new stuff coming out of studios, clubs and garages around the world.
It has been quite an adventure, you could say a little crazy - but now that we've created this extraordinary collection of music analysis, we think we can help be your guide as you explore your favorite parts of the music universe.
Yay for Pandora! It even lets you give songs "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" to play more or less songs like that particular one, so it can learn from your preferences. Smart.