Comments on: This is where we turned it up to 11

This is where we turned it up to 11

TwoWordReview — Fri, 26 Sep 2014 16:05:26 -0800

Where is the Drama takes any song input recognized by Spotify and analyses it to find the 30 seconds or so of highest drama, defined as the portion of the song with the largest increase in loudness.

Paul Lamere of The Echonest (and musicmachinery.com ) produced the new web app at the Berlin Music Hack Day.

"The app grabs the detailed audio analysis for the song from The Echo Nest. This includes a detailed loudness map of the song. This is the data I use to find the drama. To do so, I look for the part of the song with the largest rise in volume over the course of a 30 second window (longer songs can have a bit of a longer dramatic window). I give extra weight to crescendos that culminate in louder peaks (so if there are two crescendos that are 20dB in range but one ends at 5dB louder, it will win). Once I identify the most dynamic part of a song, I pad it a bit (so we get to hear a bit of the drop after the build)."

There's more details on the original post and follow up post, but the proof as they say is in the pudding. As one of the commenters says, it correctly identifies the drum fill from 'In the Air Tonight' and the beginning of the guitar solo in 'Stairway to Heaven' so I'm going to go ahead and call it a success. (Also in the hackiest of ingenious hacks it uses a play 4'33" command as a stop button)

By: aubilenon

aubilenon — Fri, 26 Sep 2014 16:20:30 -0800

I can't get it to make any noise at all. The tracks I'm trying play fine in the Spotify web player. I guess other people are having better luck?

By: evilangela

evilangela — Fri, 26 Sep 2014 16:22:13 -0800

It doesn't play the song itself on the page, just does a link that launches the song directly in the Spotify player at the target time.

By: aubilenon

aubilenon — Fri, 26 Sep 2014 16:26:32 -0800

I guess that doesn't work with the spotify web player. At least, it doesn't for me. 'sokay. I can just play along with my local copies of the same media.

By: escabeche

escabeche — Fri, 26 Sep 2014 16:27:28 -0800

The correct moment of "Come Sail Away" is just barely in his window. Half credit.

By: spitbull

spitbull — Fri, 26 Sep 2014 16:27:44 -0800

Quantify my aesthetics for $300, please, Alex?

By: spitbull

spitbull — Fri, 26 Sep 2014 16:30:44 -0800

"Won't Get Fooled Again" can't fool the algorithm either. Now I want to see it used for classical music.

By: koeselitz

koeselitz — Fri, 26 Sep 2014 16:31:50 -0800

escabeche: “The correct moment of ‘Come Sail Away’ is just barely in his window. Half credit.” Just an educated guess: the moment of highest drama in "Come Sail Away" comes about thirty seconds after the song ends when it fades from your immediate memory, right? Or maybe that's just the moment associated with the song that I happen to enjoy most personally.

By: escabeche

escabeche — Fri, 26 Sep 2014 16:33:42 -0800

KEYBOARD SOLOS AT DAWN

By: ricochet biscuit

ricochet biscuit — Fri, 26 Sep 2014 16:42:20 -0800

Paradise by the Dashboard Light gets pretty dramatic at "What's it going to be, boy: yes or no?" sayeth the site. I submit that trying to find the most dramatic part of a Jim Steinman composition is like deciding to look at the sun and identify the brightest bit.

By: lownote

lownote — Fri, 26 Sep 2014 16:58:03 -0800

This is a really narrow and limited view of creating drama in music. The app does a good job in measuring what it measures, but what it measures isn't really what they say is being measured.

By: ricochet biscuit

ricochet biscuit — Fri, 26 Sep 2014 17:39:08 -0800

This is a really narrow and limited view of creating drama in music. The app does a good job in measuring what it measures, but what it measures isn't really what they say is being measured. posted by lownote at 7:58 PM on September 26 Eponycorrect.

By: Mothlight

Mothlight — Fri, 26 Sep 2014 18:07:05 -0800

I call FAIL on "Strawberry Letter 23."

By: Rich Smorgasbord

Rich Smorgasbord — Fri, 26 Sep 2014 18:39:44 -0800

For quacky formalism, this is piddling, and too obvious to fool many people into taking it very seriously. A bigger and not-so-obvious example of this kind of thing, though, is Pandora.

By: Devils Rancher

Devils Rancher — Fri, 26 Sep 2014 18:46:31 -0800

Just an educated guess: the moment of highest drama in "Come Sail Away".... It's just Dennis DeYoung saying "lads" over & over again. seriously, who the hell actually says lads?

By: emptythought

emptythought — Fri, 26 Sep 2014 18:53:08 -0800

Wow, so someone actually wrote a piece of software to answer this question.

By: pony707

pony707 — Fri, 26 Sep 2014 20:10:24 -0800

Correctly identified WHEN I WAS! A YOUNG BOY! MY FATHER! TOOK ME INTO THE CITY...

By: newper

newper — Fri, 26 Sep 2014 20:28:31 -0800

Danger Zone Boat Drinks Gangam Style Shake It Off Blue Bayou Bohemian Rhapsody

By: chrominance

chrominance — Fri, 26 Sep 2014 20:38:29 -0800

Where is the drama? Not available in Canada on the first song I tried, apparently. Even though I can, in fact, play that song in Canada on Spotify.

By: blucevalo

blucevalo — Fri, 26 Sep 2014 20:49:57 -0800

Paying your H.P. demands forever ...... is the start of the downside of the drama, not the start of the peak of it.

By: Rhaomi

Rhaomi — Fri, 26 Sep 2014 22:57:33 -0800

Spotify has some interesting things in the works with Echonest's vast metadatabase. Check out FiveThirtyEight's beta test of a feature that's supposed to help you distinguish between the music you think you like, and the music you actually listen to most often: Spotify Knows Me Better Than I Know Myself

By: marienbad

marienbad — Sat, 27 Sep 2014 02:17:36 -0800

The Velvet Underground - White Light, White Heat - "That track is way too dramatic for me. Try another." - Epic Win!

By: marienbad

marienbad — Sat, 27 Sep 2014 02:21:46 -0800

Aqua - Barbie girl. Well I have no idea if it is right or not but it looks like a cool graph and I am a sucker for a cool graph.

By: spitbull

spitbull — Sat, 27 Sep 2014 04:05:52 -0800

Right, it could be called "where does it get loud the longest?" Of course "Where's the melodrama?" Is what is needed for most pop. And the answer of course is always "in your pants."

By: HeroZero

HeroZero — Sat, 27 Sep 2014 06:57:37 -0800

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHYYYYYYYYYYYY

By: HeroZero

HeroZero — Sat, 27 Sep 2014 07:00:40 -0800

HONEY I KNOW I KNOW TIMES ARE CHANGIN

By: jscalzi

jscalzi — Sat, 27 Sep 2014 07:11:02 -0800

I inputted "Madness" by Muse and got the following response: "That track is way too dramatic for me. Try another."

By: arcticseal

arcticseal — Sat, 27 Sep 2014 07:31:41 -0800

Solsbury Hill has a hill in the graph. Who'd have thunk it?