50 years ago, nobody could have imagined we listen to music on our smartphones, mp3-players or even on our computers. Let alone the genres and kinds of music we listen!
Beneath this text is an audio file, an example of what music 50 years from now could sound like. It might seem simple. but it is actually computer generated music.
A programmed algorithm continuously updates 5 sets of data from the internet:
-The current outside temperature
-The current weather's cloudiness
-Train departure times from a big city to my home-town
-The current time
-If the EUR against the USD is rising, falling or going steady
Based on a set of rules this information is translated into music on the fly. The music does still have a random element to still make it interesting and not boring.
These sets of rules are as follow:
-The piano line contains more high notes and generally has a more happy tune to it when the temperature goes up
-The humming of glass can be heard the more clouds there are outside
-A bass plays a tune one a base speed (1 second), if it goes faster EUR is rising in value, if it is going slower it's declining.
-Sometimes bell(s) can be heard. If you hear it once it means my train is leaving in 10 to 15 minutes. twice: 6 to 10 and three times means in 5 minutes.
So now you know the set of rules and the information, you can decrypt the information also!
This is just an example of what the future could sound like.
But imagine tell a computer the things you want to know, such as the amount of facebook messages you've got or the amount of traffic on the way to work. Then you tell it what music you like and how you want to be notified for each piece of information. e.g.: "I want a cool bass solo if I get a message!" or "the more traffic is on my way to work, the classier I want the music to be!"
Now imagine waking up in the future after you told a computer these things...
You take a earpiece from your desk and plug it in your ear. Automatically music begins to play, music you like! You go about your day, eating breakfast, reading the newspaper, and just by listening to the music, you now know there's a lot of traffic to your work, so you'd better take the train -ding-, you hear a bell, the train is leaving in half an hour, better hurry!
While brushing your teeth you get updated with the new likes on your Facebook status, the messages you got and more!
Just by passively listening to music, you get information. Perhaps even more then you'd normally would!
Technical details:
The algorithm consists of 7 loops written in Ruby, with help of the Sonic Pi shell. 3 of these loops update and retrieve information from a weather API, the national railway API and the Yahoo! Finance API. The other loops play the instruments,
The piano-loop continously plays four combination of four chords in four different combination. These four combination are all rated on a scale from 1, unhapy to 4, happy. The higher the temperature the more happy chord-combinations will be chosen pseudorandomly and the faster the chords will be played.
The bass line is a direct translation from rising, falling of the euro to it's speed.