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SCIENCE + SONG = SUCCESS
In undergraduate school, my music theory professor made us analyze music using the SHMRG method. Each letter represented an element found in music:
~Sound (instruments, voices, etc.)
~Harmony (how notes sound when played together)
~Melody (the main line of music)
~Rhythm (combinations of sound and silence, short and long notes, tempo, pulse, meter)
~Growth (how the music develops, the way it’s put together)
A specific combination of the above elements creates a specific piece of music. All one has to do is change one of the elements and the entire “feel” of the music can change.
It is safe to say that if you enjoy listening to a piece of music, it is because you like its combination of elements. Therefore, it’s even safer to say that if you like a specific combination of elements in one piece of music, you will like the same combination in another piece of music.
This is the M.O. behind Pandora Radio. Pandora is the “Founding Father” of music streaming services, as it has been around since 2000. Its creators collaborated with the brain trust involved in the “Music Genome Project” to produce a unique listening experience for users. Thirty musicologists created a process by which a piece of music is scientifically analyzed and categorized. This process analyzes over 400 musical characteristics based on the elements of music I listed above.
What does this mean for “Joe Listener”? LOTS!! This analysis helps the listener establish playlists based on common musical characteristics of individual pieces of music. Here’s a example of the process:
I’m feeling the urge to listen to some James Taylor. I log into Pandora Radio and type in “James Taylor”. The song “Sweet Baby James” (ahh…) begins to play. When I click on the song title, the following analysis shows up:
It’s so cool to see what traits make this song so cool!
As you can see, it gives me a choice to create a “station” based on the attributes listed. It also allows me to give a “Thumbs Up” to accept the song (and its attributes). If I affirm both of these choices, then the rest of the music on this station will have similar characteristics. It won’t be exclusively James Taylor’s music, but it will be similar in style. If the song doesn’t meet your needs, you can skip it and go to the next one. From there, you can decide if that music is “station-worthy”.
Caveat: Since the creation of stations is based on scientific analysis, it will not know if a song brings back bad memories of that long ago romance or the day a dear relative passed away. However it will play music based on your indicated preferences.
Pandora is available for almost all mobile devices, as well as on many HDTV’s. There is a free version with ads as well as a paid version.
This is one Pandora’s box I don’t mind opening. I like seeing what, exactly, makes up my music tastes, according to scientists and musicologists. However, I can myself getting sucked into that infamous Black Hole of Technology….again.
This concludes my series of music streaming service overviews. You can read Part 1 here and Part 2 here.
Do you have a favorite resource for your online music? Tell us about it!!
Until next time,
Experiment away!