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COMMUNITY VOICES Keeping up with music trends is a click away


jazz songs have approximately 400. Before new music is added to the Pardora database, a team of musicians listens to each song and analyzes its structure. For example, Lady Gaga’s “Lovegame” includes four-on-the- floor beats, both R&B and elec- tronica influences, catchy hooks, danceable beats, non-syncopated ensemble rhythms, straight drum beats, vocal samples, use of call- and-response vocals, clear pronun- ciation, use of modal harmonies, a synth bass riff, synth swoops, affected synths, subtle use of noise effects and prevalent use of groove. Mozart’s “Quintet in E-flat


R


ecently, while driving back from a client’s office in Orange County, the rain and


traffic were making things slow going. As I was channel surfing through Sirius/XM satellite radio like a mad man, Byron, the newest member of the Fishbone Comput- ing team, started talking about Pandora radio (Pandora.com). Pandora is a free online radio service with a really cool twist. Not being the most musically intuitive person or having the time to spend hours on iTunes listening to clips, you could classify my tastes as pedestrian or Top 40—though I long to discover more creative and interesting music and genres. That’s where Pandora comes in. The brainchild of Will Glaser and Tim Westergren, Pandora helps you discover music us- ing something called the Music Genome Project, which Glaser and Westergren created in late 1999. It works like this: You log on to Pandora.com, enter a song or artist you like and Pandora searches its database of licensed songs for similar tunes that you might enjoy. While Pandora has been around for some time (actually, four years longer than Facebook), I am sure there are people like me who may have never used it or those who have heard about it in passing and want to know how it works. This Music Genome uses complex mathematical algo- rithms based on five genomes, or genres—pop/rock, hip-hop/elec- tronic, jazz, world music and clas- sical. Songs stored in Pandora’s genome database are categorized in even greater detail using hundreds of specific attributes or “genes,” such as tempo. Rock and pop are characterized by 150 genes, rap songs have 350, and


Major for Piano and Winds” has attributes that include a melliflu- ous aesthetic, a subdued, expres- sive aesthetic, a bittersweet senti- ment, a well-known composer, Classical Era style, a chamber ensemble, tonal harmony, major key tonality and a broad tempo. Pandora’s automated music


recommendation service relies on the data produced by the Music Genome Project. Users log into Pandora.com, type the name of a song title or artist and Pandora then starts a “radio station” of songs that are musically similar. Skeptical, I have been trying it out, and the results are great and the songs it produces on my stations proved to be uncannily accurate matches. Linkin Park was the first


artist I typed in. The music that followed started with “Session” by Linkin Park, followed by “The Red” by Chevelle, “Love the Way You Lie” by Eminem and “The Kill” by 30 Seconds to Mars. Going old school, I tried Alan Parsons Project. The songs that followed included artists like Dire Straits, Fleetwood Mac and Pink Floyd. An input of Vivaldi brought forth the composer’s “Trio Sonata for Violin, Lute and continuo in C major,” followed by a “Sonata da Camera” (“chamber Sonata”). The last station I created was Lady Gaga. Pandora’s picks began with “Lovegame,” then progressed to David Guetta’s “Sexy Bitch” and Katy Perry’s “Hot-n-Cold.” Users also can give the song


a “thumbs down,” which means the song, and others like it, will not be played, further helping the user fine tune their station. Each song appearing on a


station includes a full artist bio, lyrics and links to similar artists. It also includes a link where you can purchase it through iTunes or Amazon, or buy the full CD. Registered users can play 40 hours of music per month for free. There are short advertisements interspersed between every few songs. The free version only allows the user to skip through four songs on each newly created station. The


stations a user creates are saved to their account and can be ac- cessed and played in the future. Songs and stations can be shared though Facebook, Twitter and e-mail if the user desires. Pandora Mobile is also free and


runs on AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile networks for use with the iPhone, Blackberry, Android and various Windows Mobile devices. For a more robust experience, users can download Pandora One, which offers a desktop application with unlimited music, higher qual- ity audio, five hour music timers and no advertising. Pandora One runs $36 annually and is supported by both Mac and PC. It’s been a while since I was


really impressed with something, but Pandora has done it for me. No longer am I relegated to begging my friends to make cool playlists for me; it seems that technology is taking care of things for me once again! Have a burning IT question or just want to learn more about something technical? Shoot me an e-mail at tech@gay-sd.com and I’ll try to answer it for you, perhaps in this very column.


—Geof Bartell holds a master’s degree in business administration, is a certified Project Manager and owner of Fishbone Computing in University Heights.


October 8-October 21, 2010 GAY SAN DIEGO


11


TECHDIEGO GEOF BARTELL


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