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Microsoft's Tune Problems

The unspoken dark side of the iPod phenomenon is that music you buy from iTunes can only be played with iTunes or an iPod.

Some people think that Zune, Microsoft's coming MP3 player, is a strong contender, that Microsoft can challenge Apple's hegemony in a way that Creative can't. I wouldn't take that bet. Anyone who has bought more than a few songs from Apple is tied in. Those songs will not play on any other player. You can change them to MP3 format and use them on other players but most people won't understand that.

Apple was smart. Take the lead, build the brand, establish the presence -- and technically create a barrier to entry.

It's Microsoft's third biggest problem. (Their second biggest problem is open-source software. Their biggest problem is Vista.)

Pandora's Music Box

A friend, Mike Weston, directed me to Pandora (www.pandora.com). He said:

"You give them an artist or even just a single song, and they create a station based on that. As things play you can tell them which ones you you like and which you dislike, and they adjust accordingly. Apparently they have been creating this "music genome" for several years, having trained musicians listen to each song and categorize it with hundreds of attributes."

I was intrigued. Websites that match your tastes to music lists are not new (first one I saw was in 1995). The early ones use "collaborative filtering" which matches your tastes to other peoples' and guesses that you will like what they did. It works pretty well but stumbles, especially when you have varied tastes. This one is a lot more sophisticated and engaging. Way cooler than I expected.

Right off the bat, I tossed it a hard one -- "Beatles." It's hard because it tells them nothing much about my tastes. Early, mid, or late Beatles and which of their many styles? Do I like it because it's pop, because of the instrumentation, or a billion other reasons?

It played "Twist and Shout" and then something I never heard of (Sandy Salisbury, "Here Comes that Feeling") which was recognizably similar in musical structure, but bland and uninteresting to me. I gave it a thumbs-down. Then they tossed me an Elton John cut I had never heard ("Who Wears These Shoes") which I liked.

Then "Ticket to Ride" and Fleetwood Mac's "Monday Morning" and Badfinger's "Baby Blue." I like all of these but my station was locked into a narrow groove . So I added some new artists using the items I have rated most highly in my own iTunes collection. I deliberately chose a range (Al DiMeola, Smokey Robinson & The Miracles, Sarah McLachlan, U2).

It kept coming up with songs I liked, including many that were new to me. The styles varied.

I threw it some slightly whackier choices like Gorillaz, Zero 7, and Shania Twain.

It continues to play a pleasant mix of known and unknown cuts and artists. What I find impressive is how it combines dissimilar music profiles. And I really like how it has found stuff I'd never heard of.

After that second cut, it never gave me anything I did not like!

You can set up "stations" to accommodate different moods and tastes. I could make myself some narrow programs -- jazz, female vocal, aged hippie dinosaur rock -- in addition to the variety mix my first station embodies. I'll experiment some more and see if it continues to work as a benevolent robo-DJ.

Interesting to click on the song and ask "why did you play this song?" They will tell you the common aspects -- e.g. " Based on what you've told us so far, we're playing this track because it features mixed acoustic and electric instrumentation, extensive vamping, electric rhythm guitars, and a dynamic female vocalist." The text varies with each song, reporting what in this track resembled the overall profile. Another one from my station, for instance, said that the track "features jazz fusion elements, electric bass playing, unusual rhythms..." Isn't it interesting how it recognized two different styles that I like?

The user interface is very nicely engineered. It doesn't demand you register, instead seducing you to by offering something of value. Pandora is free if you are willing to see ads, $3-4 a month for ad-free.

(Speaking as an Internet marketer, I found the idea engaging in other ways. They have the opportunity to do highly targeted advertising. For instance, you can buy music, and they can aim ads at you based on what you like.)

Moog

You may have seen that Robert Moog died last week. Not many electrical engineers make headlines when they die. Moog, as most people know, was the inventor of the Moog synthesizer. I knew about the device, of course, and have heard pieces that used it. What I didn't know was how widely used it really was and how important it was - and is - to the music we listen to. 

I just downloaded an album from the Moog movie soundtrack and was astonished to know the degree to which it was used by The Beatles, the Beach Boys, Devo, Emerson Lake and Palmer, They Might be Giants, Yes, Stereolab, and many others.

 

Moog (soundtrack from the Motion Picture)

Moog's fascination with electronically synthesized music began at the age of 15, when he built a theremin from a magazine project. A theremin makes eerie sounds that vary in pitch as the user's hands moved near a couple of plates.

He built several more and developed a kit which he sold for $49.95. It was very successful and financed his electrical engineering degrees.

In 1964, Moog developed a revolutionary electronic instrument using transistors, which were pretty new at the time. Much less expensive and much easier to use than any previous synthesizer, the $11,000 Moog synthesizer and could emulate a wide range of acoustic instruments and go further, synthesizing sounds that were new.

In 1968, Moog's device became a hit when Walter Carlos (who later became Wendy Carlos) released an album, "Switched On Bach." Ultimately, he made a fortune, which he mostly lost later to not-so-good marketing and business skills, a story that is fairly common among electrical engineers. He sold his business and the name, ultimately regaining the rights to the Moog name and receiving a Grammy.

Moog claimed to have no personal taste in music and preferred silence. He lamented that contemporary music "is listened to by solitary people, isolated from their surroundings by headphones."

Source: The Week, September 9, 2005

Here is a song list from the album, "Moog (soundtrack from the Motion Picture)"

Abominatron -- 33
Another Year Away -- Roger O'Donnell
Baroque Hoedown (Pop Version) -- They Might Be Giants
Beautiful Love -- Tortoise
Blue Monday -- New Order
Bob's Funk -- The Moog Cookbook
Cars -- Gary Numan
Close to the Edge -- Yes
E.V.A. -- Jean Jacques Perrey
Endless Horizon (I Love Bob Mix) -- Electric Skychurch
I Am a Spaceman -- Charlie Clouser
Lucky Man -- Lake & Palmer Emerson
Micro Melodies -- The Album Leaf
Mixed Waste 4.2 -- Baiyon
Mongoloid -- Devo
Nanobot Highway -- Money Mark
Realistic Source -- Bostich
Sqeeble -- Plastiq Phantom
The Sentinel -- Psilonaut
Unavailable Memory -- Meat Beat Manifesto
Variation One -- Stereolab
When Bernie Speaks -- Bernie Worrell & Bootsy Collins
You Have Been Selected -- Pete DeVriese
You Moog Me -- Jean Jacques Perrey & Luke Vibert