Music as Information: What Gets Lost?

09/08/23 • 46 min

Where does music live? Is it the sound in the room? Is it in your brain? Or maybe it lives on paper? In order to repeat it, we need to create systems to write it down, and ultimately represent music as information or data. But what gets lost when we do this?
Writing music down seems straightforward enough. But as we’ll see, the process of reducing the rich experience of music to dots on paper isn’t as simple as jotting down a grocery list or even writing down your innermost thoughts about last night’s dreams.
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More from your lovely hosts:
Greg: https://gregwilder.com
Alison: https://alisonwilder.net/

Doctor Body is Alison & Greg's experimental electronic duo.
PatternSonix is Alison & Greg's niche consulting firm focusing on the intersection between sound and AI.
Subscribe on your favorite podcast platform or check us out at toomuchmusicpodcast.com
Music, blogging, & more from your hosts: Dr. Greg Wilder | Alison Wilder

Previous Episode

Art vs. Pop Music Smackdown - Pt. 2

The first sign that the Wilder marriage might be in trouble happened before the wedding: it was a knock-down, drag-out fight about whether there's a fundamental difference between music in the European art music tradition and music in the American blues tradition. (We can all agree that this is a severely nerdy topic to fight about.)
Eventually, after years of testy conversation, Alison conceded on this one -- Greg and Alison now agree, they're different. But how?
This two (maybe three?!)-part episode delves into the specific traits and characteristics that make art music and pop music different from each other. Part one focused on the musical characteristics, while part two dives into culturally-driven differences.
Greg's website: https://gregwilder.com
Alison's website: https://alisonwilder.net

Next Episode

How Do Computers Match Musical Sounds?

Today we take a look back at the music technology underpinning a startup co-founded by our hosts in the early 2010s. With the motto "Use Music to Find Music" , Clio Music was perhaps the first commercially available search engine to speak the language of music and has been a part of TiVo since 2012.
Listen in as our intrepid hosts share insights from that experience as well as ways they see this technology playing an important role in the future of music AI.
Subscribe on your favorite podcast platform or check us out at https://www.toomuchmusicpodcast.com/
More from your lovely hosts:
Greg: https://gregwilder.com
Alison: https://alisonwilder.net/