Music Machinery

This weekend was Rethink Music Hacker’s Weekend where 100 or so music hackers gathered at the Microsoft NERD to not just rethink music, but to rebuild it.  There were  about two dozen hacks built, showing a wide range of creativity. Some of my favorites are:

Kinect Bomba  -As in the latin style of music called “Bomba”, the dancer is in control of the band and music.  The virtual band is the kinect — the dancer(s) can create sweet, live beat-locked music over any mp3 (using echonest-remix), remixes, and even control a virtual looper pedal.

Hiptapes – HipTapes is a music marketing APP enables artists to create custom QR codes and push dynamic content to fans via posters, flyers, CDs, etc. HipTapes mobile app scans the QR code & enables users to instantly stream, bookmark or buy music tracks, purchase concerts tickets, discounted merchandise or leave a message on artist’s Facebook page.

Hipsterer – Figures out how hipster you are? (I knew about this site before it was cool).

Jam Page – Hi-resolution listener analytics for artists.

 

Texture Learning – A simple genetic algorithm learns the short-time fourier transform of a target static texture. The approximation gradually acquires information about the target sound via repeated semi-random modifications to the spectrogram. Phase and magnitude are learned separately. The learning process is sonified and visualized such that the gradual evolution of the sound from silence to target can be seen and heard. Experimentation with several control parameters results in varied output.

Byrds and the Bee Gees – finds the playlist that your parents could of have used on the night you were conceived.  Totally fun app. Toughest part is trying to decide if my dad was ‘smooth back then’.

Lyrical Sonnet Awesome –  My favorite hack. Totally origina. Uses  lyricfind.com’s API to make a sonnet generator! In Iambic pentameter! The sonnets are in the rhyme scheme of Shakespeare. ABABCDCDEFEFGG, and you can choose key words to populate the themes. Here’s an example:

• Too long values we let them blend and fade
• And with the awesome power they struck
• You’re like a long, cool glass of lemonade
• It’s Knoc-turn’al with a capital K
• Something cool, set one up for me
• If you turn away, oh, honey, please stay
• The center of attention, cool Moe Dee
• I want to take you cool places tonight
• Are you still mad I kicked you out of bed?
• What befalls us in the heat of the night?
• I keep a cool head, I keep a cool head
• That I was mad if they were sane, you see
• The blues my naughty sweetie gives to me.

Map of Music styles –  this is my hack – an interactive map of 1000s of music styles, allowing you to explore through the world of music.

See the full list of hacks on hacker league.  It was a really fun weekend, with lots of very creative hacking!