Final Blog

The intention of my blog from the start was to find ways of discovering new music for free over the internet and discuss how beneficial the different approaches were. I wanted to find places or applications people could search through which were soley devoted to pushing new artists out into the public eye.

I wanted desperatly to stay away from the major music companies and their ideas of putting music out through programming algorithms. In terms of the Internet, there really is no better way of using the programs the majority of society is using because the abundance of resources. The logos of many of these applications are on the right and link to another blog, which gives a pretty descent synopsis of each one. I knew these options are available, as do most people searching for music outside the radio, which is exactly why I found myself struggling to use them in my blog. However, in terms of finding music with extremely user-friendly searching atmospheres, these products are spectacular.

The product I found on the list which seemed most similar to the intention of my blog, would be The Hype Machine. It finds 'key words' or artists across the internet that are being talked about in blogs and on a whole host of websites. It allows you the ability to see the different artists and the number of times they are being referenced along with previews and purchasing options.

The main problem I found with trying to find music by diggin around on the internet, is that I did way more digging through trash sites and much less listening. Word of mouth is bar none the greatest way to find enjoyable music to you because nobody knows you better than a group of your peers. Computers do not have the ability to reason which makes compensating for human emotion and music preference swings impossible.

Music can be broken down into such a science in terms of sounds and how those different sounds interact with different parts of the brain. We as a civilization are already at the point of communicating with computers, the only thing necessary for music to flourish uncontrollably is to establish a connection between mood/emotion and technology. It will be interesting watch music istelf progress through more generations and even more interesting will be the evolution of how music will be obtained. In terms of the next few years, music sharing will remain relatively unchanged and will continue to impress those of us content with listening to what is easy. After 10 years, where the technology capabilities are unthinkable, music will be listened to differently and shared instantly causing music libraries to grow and become much more eclectic.

Music Genome Project

I got a comment from Teddy asking if it is perhaps the saturation of the music searching industry that is keeping new apps such as Pocket Hipster from being useful. Music Genome Project is probably the most sophisticated music matching technology currently out in the market. It has the ability to match attributes of songs on 400 levels and make suggestions on similar music accordingly. One cheer for Nolan Gasser, Chief Musicologist of Pandora, for making this possible and turning the art of music searching into a more simplified scientific algorithm. You can check out his INTERVIEW earlier this year with Matthew Lasar along with explanations of how music gets suggested in Pandora.

Music Discovery App

Pocket Hipster is some new app you can download on you iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, etc..., I just read about that allows you to send music into a virtual "hipster" who critiques your current library of music and then reccommends a grip of cool new music to you. The article I checked out is at PR Newswire.

Two companies, The Echo Nest and We Are Hunted, teamed up to make this new app available which is pretty cool. Definitely check out those two companies sites, they are fun to play around with and have tons of music and apps to download if interested. Actually those two websites are a good way to explore music and find something new without the app they created.

So this is pretty cool for everyone who is looking for new music or just more of the same music. I do not know exactly how they get their music other than what they call data mining but it seems like they are doing a descent job.

First Blog Ever!

I guess you I am shooting for the most improved award when it comes to design.

I am going to learn the most from this blog because I am not anywhere close to an expert of music....yet! The plan is to dive into the music industry as deeply as possible to see how artists begin their business ventures/careers. I want to know how they start out and begin marketing their own flavor to make it different and get it listened to by the right people. How exactly does music transition from garage band material into a produced end result getting listened to by an average person without a digital hunt on the internet.

There is much more business and digital media waiting to get explored and exploited from music where it is currently not. Tons of awesome music goes unheard beneath the social radar of the radio mainly due to the lack of resources. If nothing else I want to find some music I should be listening to in the opinion of the rest of you, something different and new...