A little disturbing

The American Society for Engineering Education puts together this really cool publication called Go For It! It describes different engineering fields by showcasing individuals who are working on some pretty interesting engineering projects.

One of the examples is about music engineering. The article talks about the first electric guitar, synthesizers, etc. Apparently Georgia Tech has devised an electronic drum machine that can play real skins and even improvise. There's software that can fix off-key voices and bum notes after the fact, and make tinny voices sound fuller and richer (for the Britney Spears of the world). And, of course, digital music sales came as a result of engineering breakthroughs--not through the music industry.

Here's the scary part -- There is technology now that helps producers pick hits. The article reports, "Music Intelligence Solutions' software, Hit Song Science (HSS), works on the discovery that popular songs all use various combinations of similar mathematical parameters, whether the genre is rock, pop, rap, classical or country. The math signatures in 50 Cent's rap hit 'If I Can't,' are close to those in the country hit, 'There's No Getting Over Her,' though the songs sound very different. HSS, which relies on a database of popular tunes from the last 30 years, has an impressive hit-prediction rate of 98 percent." (1)

This scares me. I've never been one to follow the latest craze or what's on the latest "in" list. The thought of having only mediocre choices in entertainment -- music, film, books -- is disturbing.

On the positive side, the same engineering advances that may be responsible for boring mass media success is also providing channels for artists and niche audiences to find each other -- that people that the large for-profit distribution channels wouldn't waste their time on.

Let's hope that "The Long Tail"(2) lives on through channels like I-Tunes, YouTube, CDBaby.com, etc.

(1) Go For It!, 2007, pages 26-27, ISSN 1544-7510, American Society for Engineering Educators
(2) The Long Tail