The Shazam Effect

prof_rockwell

I posted the link to this in the streaming thread as it touched on digital and streaming services, but thought it warranted it's own discussion in terms of how popular music has been shaped by analytics over the past 20 years or so.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/12/the-shazam-effect/382237/?single_page=true

It would be too simplistic to say that music is racing in a single direction—toward dumber, louder, and more-repetitive pop. Now that labels recognize how popular hip-hop and country really are, they have created innovative new sounds by blending those genres with traditional pop. One of the popular songs of this past summer, “Problem,” combined a dizzy sax hook, ’90s-pop vocals, a whispered chorus, and a female rap verse. It was utterly strange and, for a while, ubiquitous. Greta Hsu, an associate professor at the University of California at Davis, who has done research on genre-blending in Hollywood, told me that although mixing categories is risky, hybrids can become standout successes, because they appeal to multiple audiences as being somehow both fresh and familiar.

Music fans can also find comfort in the fact that data have not taken over the songwriting process. Producers and artists pay close attention to trends, but they’re not swimming in spreadsheets quite like the suits at the labels are. Perhaps one reason machines haven’t yet invaded the recording room is that listeners prefer rhythms that are subtly flawed. A 2011 Harvard study found that music performed by robotic drummers and other machines often strikes our ears as being too precise. “There is something perfectly imperfect about how humans play rhythms,” says Holger Hennig, the Harvard physics researcher who led the study. Hennig discovered that when experienced musicians play together, they not only make mistakes, they also build off these small variations to keep a live song from sounding pat.

fishmongerfunk

Duderonomy

Fred_Garvin

I like that it took Harvard researchers until 2011 to arrive at a conclusion that musicians have been stating outright for decades.

LaserWolf

prof_rockwell said:

Perhaps one reason machines haven’t yet invaded the recording room is that listeners prefer rhythms that are subtly flawed. A 2011 Harvard study found that music performed by robotic drummers and other machines often strikes our ears as being too precise. “There is something perfectly imperfect about how humans play rhythms,” says Holger Hennig, the Harvard physics researcher who led the study. Hennig discovered that when experienced musicians play together, they not only make mistakes, they also build off these small variations to keep a live song from sounding pat.

What they are calling imperfect rhythms are not mistakes. It's called groove. It is elusive and very hard to quantify.
I read a book a while back called This Is Your Brain On Music, written by a professional musician and studio engineer turned neuroscientist and brain researcher.
He talks a lot about the difference between rhythm and time.
He finally says that musicians know when they have found the pocket/groove.
Studio musicians might find it today, but not find it the tomorrow, even though everyone is playing what is on the page correctly.

BTW, even though the subject is very interesting and the author knowledgeable, the book is a poorly organized laborious read.

Duderonomy

LaserWolf said:

prof_rockwell said:

Perhaps one reason machines haven’t yet invaded the recording room is that listeners prefer rhythms that are subtly flawed. A 2011 Harvard study found that music performed by robotic drummers and other machines often strikes our ears as being too precise. “There is something perfectly imperfect about how humans play rhythms,” says Holger Hennig, the Harvard physics researcher who led the study. Hennig discovered that when experienced musicians play together, they not only make mistakes, they also build off these small variations to keep a live song from sounding pat.

What they are calling imperfect rhythms are not mistakes. It's called groove. It is elusive and very hard to quantify.

He finally says that musicians know when they have found the pocket/groove.

Agreed - some people can dance, and others can't. It's not as simple as being told, the next song is in 4/4 at 120 bpms, GO!
Like a conversation, there's a subtlety to music that requires a particular kind of intuition.

batmon

neil_something

A 2011 Harvard study found that music performed by robotic drummers and other machines often strikes our ears as being too precise.

I wonder what music they used for this study. The likes of Sly Stone and Shuggie Otis used drum machines and still managed to sound pretty loose.

LaserWolf

They are talking about robotic drummers, not drum machines.