Singing a different tune

Ever get the feeling that you sometimes get caught in a rut? I know I do. When it comes time for the monthly shop do you find yourself ordering pretty much the same as last month? You can have whatever you want but you, like me, probably have a relatively set menu that you stick by and only occasionally supplement. Or maybe the change in seasons is the reason that you are eating a little differently this month.

Routines rise out of comfort situations. They are not bad in themselves because they are established using the tried and the tested. Yet you often watch a cookery show and crave the alternatives that they show. Or, Like me, you have sat in a restaurant at some point waiting for your regular meal to arrive only to see something looking far better going to another table.

A couple of years ago a friend asked me to retrieve the contents of a memory stick as they were having problems with it. The stick had their music collection of 30 or 40 songs on it. I created the copy they were looking for but I also took a copy myself. The songs on their drive weren't new. I recognised them all. The reason I took a copy was that I liked all the songs but not enough to have gone out and purchased or downloaded them. Yet having them together made an excellent collection of songs that I listen to to this day.

I remember loving the film 'Good Morning Vietnam' because of the soundtrack yet I didn't have one of the artists let alone the songs in my collection.

Where am I going with this? Well we're all pretty insular about what we actually purchase and yet no-where near as insular about what we actually like. I like a vast range of music, both older and contemporary, and yet I stick to the same artists constantly when I make a purchase. Don't get me wrong I like what I like but sometimes it can become a bit boring. This is where a program called Shazam comes in and a little experiment that I'm going to try.

Now I discovered Shazam via the iPhone. This however is not an I phone blog. A version of Shazam can also be found here: http://www.shazam.com/music/web/pages/explorer.html

For iPhone users Shazam was that cool little program where, you held your phone up to the music and it told you: what song was playing, who it was by and when it came out. The rest of us mere mortals were impressed but fell short of selling the family car to have this functionality on our Nokias. However like a lot of software it has been developing away quietly into something more than just a good gimmick. I got it for my phone. I played a random song from my PC to test it, turned on the phone, selected 'Tag now' and waited. Sure enough it had identified a song by a band called Alabama 3 called 'Ain't going to Goa'. Never heard of them? They sang the theme tune to the Sopranos if that helps.


So this might be good but it falls short of impressive. I knew who sang the song and so did it. A gimmick and nothing more? Possibly not. As well as identifying the song and band it also did something else. It 'Tagged' the song and recommended five other songs that I might like. One of these tags was REM and a song called Stand which I know and really like yet haven't ever purchased. Another was for a song I'd never heard from Baldly drawn boy called 'The time of times'. For each of these tags there was a link to a 10 second clip of the recommended song. After listening to the badly drawn boy song, and liking it, I downloaded both it and Stand by REM. I wasn't overly keen on the other recommendations however (it gave 5 in all). But I did like the idea. Could this little program expose me to music and bands that I have no idea of? I played Stand and 'tagged it'. Bingo. Now I've downloaded Jason Marz and Spin doctors (both songs I could sing along to on the radio but couldn't have named the artist).

So here's the deal. I'm going to follow this wherever it leads. I know the song that started it. From that song I now have two more. I can tag those and I'll get yet more. Within a year i could have discovered a whole new taste in music.

There's a blogger thing online about taking pictures. I can't remember the name but the idea was to try and take 365 pics in a year. For most of us it would provide some sort of voyeuristic insight into their life's whilst for the photographer it would be the ultimate diary. For me this Shazam thing could work in a similar way with music.


If you like this idea access Shazam from the link above. If you want Shazam as an app for your iPhone or other mobile phone then download the paid version as the free version limits you. Remember that downloading music without paying for it is 'a crime'. There's a whole world of music that you already know of but don't have access to. In addition there's bound to be stuff you've never heard before.

I remember once my dad finding me reading a book. He asked what I was reading and I replied. With true feeling he said 'I wish I hadn't ever read that book so I could discover it right now'. He was genuinely envious of the fact that I was discovering at that moment the excitement of a story that he had already been told.

Think of your favorite song. 'shazam' it and then follow the tags. Download the songs that you like. 'Shazam' those songs and download the recommendations that you like. Before you know what has happened you'll have a whole new music collection.

Happy hunting

T