Firms taking music apart

[norml]

Firms taking music apart



By Alex Veiga, Associated Press

OAKLAND -- In a computer-crammed space at Savage Beast Technologies, divergent melodies seep softly from headphones worn by young men and women who listen to music with the intensity of submarine sonar operators.
Their job is to discern and define attributes in tunes by artists as diverse as teen diva Hilary Duff and jazz legend Miles Davis.

The listeners classify hundreds of characteristics about each song, including beat, melody, lyrics, tonal palette and dynamics, then plug the data into a music recommendation engine -- software designed to find songs that share similar traits.

The goal is to help retailers suggest new music to consumers based on what they already like.





snip





http://www.dailynews.com/Stories/0,1413,200~20950~2903116,00.html





Siren Systems, Inc., music analyst intern Nataliya Zaytseva, foreground, listens to music on her headphones in San Francisco. (AP Photo / Jeff Chiu)

[lapfog_1]

1. My old college roommate was doing this some 25 years ago..

His software was particularly good at recognizing composers of
jazz music. So if you wanted to create your own, you established
an overall "theme" and then asked it to insert a riff in the style
of, say, John Coltrane. Very sophisticated software which learned
more as it "listened" to more and more music samples.

For the fundies out there... his learning software used math formulas
from "Adaptation in Natural and Artificial Systems" which creates
models of how evolution works and is used in AI programs to create
"learning software".

[jpgray]

2. My suggestion is to hire employees that know about music

Call me crazy.

[cornermouse]

3. The homogenization of music.

Its already obvious when you listen to the radio.

[Squeech]

4. Just what we need

Why was Led Zeppelin so innovative? Because they had a humongous range of styles to draw from: everything from Elvis to traditional Celtic to Carnatic (south Indian) to Muddy Waters. They put it all together in a unique and powerful way. Now people come down the pike having listened to Led Zeppelin and other Anglo-American arena rock bands, and think of that as an appropriate musical background, and don't bring anything new to the table, and all sound the same. This initiative will reinforce all that conformity.

To me, music is supposed to take you somewhere you've never been before. If we engineer new music by analyzing and synthesizing the traits of the music we already like, we'll never know how to challenge and expand ourselves. That'd really suck.

On the other hand, elitist that I am, I believe the vast majority of the music consumers in the world have no idea what they really like anyway.

[immoderate]

5. How do they measure the need for variety?

:shrug: <--- I just love this guy!

--IMM

[norml]

6. Web Results 1 - 10 of about 9,320 for "Savage Beast Technologies". (0.04

Web Results 1 - 10 of about 9,320 for "Savage Beast Technologies". (0.04 seconds)
Tip: Save time by hitting the return key instead of clicking on "search"

Savage Beast Technologies
OF SAVAGE BEAST TECHNOLOGIES. Oakland, Calif. - December 14, 2004 - Savage Beast
Technologies Inc. announced the appointment of Joe Kennedy as the company's ...
www.savagebeast.com/ - 14k - Cached - Similar pages

Savage Beast Technologies
Copyright © 2000-2004, Savage Beast Technologies, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
"Music hath charms to soothe the savage beast..."
www.savagebeast.com/genome.shtml - 9k - Jun 4, 2005 - Cached - Similar pages

Consumer Technology Ventures 2005 - 11/8/2005
Savage Beast Technologies Siano Mobile Silicon SmartSwing Torian Development
Tribe Networks. events Enterprise Ventures 2005 June 14-15, 2005 ...
www.consumertechnologyventures.com/ profile.asp?cid=LPMKJIINOK - 20k - Cached - Similar pages

SIVI: Courage, Innovation, Technology
Savage Beast Technologies and Auditude Join Forces to Offer Complete Solution
... Savage Beast Technologies is a privately owned music technology company ...
www.quicksense.com/audpr-102901.html - 13k - Cached - Similar pages

Welcome to Golden Capital Network - Linking investors ...
Alumni Savage Beast Technologies Raises $7.7 Million, 12/15/2004. Savage Beast
Technologies Inc. (East Bay 2003)announced the appointment of Joe Kennedy as ...
www.goldencapital.net/_main/news.asp?id=275 - 17k - Cached - Similar pages

OAKLAND--- Joe Kennedy Appointed President and CEO of Savage Beast ...
San Diego/Orange County Local Daily Tech News source. 3000 + southern California
tech links. San Diego/Orange County Technology News.
freshnews.com/news/tech-people-move/article_20844.html - 33k - Cached - Similar pages

NPR : 'Musical Genome' Helps Find New Favorites
Savage Beast Technologies' Music Genome Project is an effort to break music down
to its most elemental forms, using a computer program that evaluates each ...
www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4661167 - Similar pages

Boston.com / Business / Start-up composes a 'music genome'
Welcome to Savage Beast Technologies Inc., a five-year-old software start-up that
is busy building a ''music genome" to identify the world's recorded music ...
www.boston.com/business/articles/ 2005/05/09/start_up_composes_a_music_genome?mode=PF - 13k - Cached - Similar pages

MercuryNews.com | 12/28/2004 | Second funding helps soothe Savage ...
Savage Beast Technologies, a software company providing music navigation and
recommendation technology, raised $7.7 million in a second round of funding led ...
www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/ news/columnists/10512631.htm?1c - 31k - Cached - Similar pages

Firms dissect music in high-tech effort to pinpoint consumer ...
In a computer-crammed space at Savage Beast Technologies, divergent melodies seep
softly from headphones worn by young men and women who listen to music ...
www.detnews.com/2005/technology/0506/04/tech-203381.htm - 27k - Jun 4, 2005 - Cached - Similar pages


http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22Savage+Beast+Technologies%22&btnG=Google+Search

[Orsino]

7. Anyone read Spinrad's "Little Heroes"?

Sounds like Muzak, Inc.

[cestpaspossible]

8. Spinrad is the man!

I'm re-reading Child of Fortune right now.