The semester is coming to an end and I'm stressed about just about everything. So, I got to thinking last night and I've come to this conclusion: I think I've lost faith in music. I'd like to give a shout out to my professor for this one. Totally kidding...sort of. In my seminar class, we've been talking a lot about whether or not music has it's lost it's touch. I was just up last night talking to friends about music and how it's all the same and none of it's special anymore. If there can be a program that can predict whether or not a song is going to be a hit, something has got to be wrong. The program is called Platinum Blue Music Intelligence and it has an 85% accuracy rate. It isolates mathematical properties found in most hit songs and compares the new song with the characteristics of the hits and determines whether or not the song with be a hit.
I told this to some people, and they thought it was amazing, but I just think it's depressing. Are we that predictable? We're so predictable that we can be reduced to math. It's just depressing to me. But then, I started thinking even more. The program is 85% predictable, not 100%. So, I guess there's still faith and creativity out there. I think that I believe in creativity more than anything now because veery once and awhile, you'll have someone create something that will completely blow your mind and it will be completely outside of the box. Will we ever hear these songs become smash hits because they don't follow the rule of music? I doubt it, but maybe there's still hope that it will.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
I'm Not Sure if I Believe in Music.
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6 comments:
We've got a 15% shot to break out of the mathematical box that we have put ourselves in. The real question is can we (WE) do it?
It makes me sad to see that the creativity in music and in people can be reduced to numbers. If they can design software to predict what music we will like how long before there is software to predict what we will like to wear, eat, read, and so on? Music may just be the beginning of what is standardized, before long everything we like and do will be the same. Goodbye creativity and individuality, hello standardization and conformity.
I agree that it's our fault that standardization is further controlling our interests. How can we fix it? I have no clue whatsoever. The same way there are issues in society, there's no quick remedy to fix an industry in the interest of capitalism. Music is a reflection of the current state of society. And if music 85% standardized, society is too.
I guess we'll just have to raise our children on schoenberg and Marchetti... If we could breed a generation of Avant Garde-grown children we'd finally get some answers...
Music is very predictable today. It's oh so frustrating to listen to the same crud over and over again. I challenge anyone to turn on a radio, dial in to a "pop, hip hop, and r & b" station. after about an hour, you would've heard their whole play list. Almost every song is like the last.
It's not just hip-hop or r&b...it's everything.
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