Random proposal of the night:

While I generally like the shifting nature of the terms and standards by with which we make our arguments in music criticism, every once in a while I think there might be some place for more precise measurement besides sales charts and RS starred reviews. One of the things we talk about a lot is different methods of production, for instance, and it might be interesting if we could have some way of quantitatively measuring certain aspects of that.

The particular thing I was considering is if it would be possible to write some sort of
algorithm to measure the mix of a track--i.e., what percentage drums, what percentage guitar, etc., which shouldn't be too hard, given that there's a fairly standard arrangement for most genres (guitars/bass/drums/voice, maybe keyboards, for rock; drums/bass/piano or sax or voice or whatever for jazz) and that there are established stats for which sonic ranges these various elements lie within. Anyway, I certainly can't do it, but it would be interesting.
posted by Mike B. at 10:03 PM 0 comments