Pandora for internet music
I have been "training" pandora.com to play music I like as my own little "radio station."
I finally realized what this was (late to every party, I know) -- and it has nothing to do with that planet in that movie. I discovered it through dead tree reading (also typical of me). A fascinating article in the NYTimes Magazine on how it "matches" your music picks.
I can get it without paying (it's advertising-supported), and I got all excited. Over the years, my musical tastes have revealed themselves, and they are very narrow. Not only a narrow slice, but a rare one, even within the classical music community. I mostly like only Early music ("the Medieval, Renaissance, and some of the Baroque periods of Western music"), performed on authentic instruments (to the extent that can be determined).
And, for some inexplicable reason, I don't like voice and instrumentals together. I love instrumental-only music, and a capella can be nice, too. An awful lot of early music (that survived) is for church choirs. Not my thing.
Pandora claims not to use "genre" in matching songs -- only musical characteristics. I'm not sure how much to believe that claim. They're not showing me anything written after 1800. And if the musicologists evaluate 400 atttributes, why can't it distinguish between vocal and non-vocal?
Of course, they do admit that classical has been low on their priority lists. Harrrrumph.
I finally realized what this was (late to every party, I know) -- and it has nothing to do with that planet in that movie. I discovered it through dead tree reading (also typical of me). A fascinating article in the NYTimes Magazine on how it "matches" your music picks.
I can get it without paying (it's advertising-supported), and I got all excited. Over the years, my musical tastes have revealed themselves, and they are very narrow. Not only a narrow slice, but a rare one, even within the classical music community. I mostly like only Early music ("the Medieval, Renaissance, and some of the Baroque periods of Western music"), performed on authentic instruments (to the extent that can be determined).
And, for some inexplicable reason, I don't like voice and instrumentals together. I love instrumental-only music, and a capella can be nice, too. An awful lot of early music (that survived) is for church choirs. Not my thing.
Pandora claims not to use "genre" in matching songs -- only musical characteristics. I'm not sure how much to believe that claim. They're not showing me anything written after 1800. And if the musicologists evaluate 400 atttributes, why can't it distinguish between vocal and non-vocal?
Of course, they do admit that classical has been low on their priority lists. Harrrrumph.