Hackers’ Heaven

Now in its second year—and expanding—the “Rethink Music” conference added Hackers’ Weekend to the roster of offerings. The event invited “hackers” from around the world to collaborate in building new music applications. The event drew some 80 technology developers to Microsoft’s New England Research and Development Center (NERD) in Cambridge.
Over the course of just 24 hours, each hacker team built app prototypes, providing innovative ways for music enthusiasts to discover and interact with what they love.

The event was presented in association by music application platform The Echo Nest. The Echo Nest has hosted similar Music Hack Days in Boston, New York, San Francisco, and several countries across the globe. Past Music Hack Days have led to viral successes such as Drinkify, a lighthearted alcoholic beverage recommendation site based on users’ musical tastes. The companies involved allowed hackers to pull information from an application programming interface (API), and the hackers used that information for their apps. For instance, Songkick’s API provided hackers with information on concerts and tour dates, and Spotify’s API allowed hackers to interact with a catalog of songs and albums.

Paul Lamere, the director of developer platform at The Echo Nest, announced the winning music apps, stating, “These are not just ideas. They are actually building them.”

Hackathon winners included Kinect Bomba, whose hack was inspired by the classical Puerto Rican dance Bomba, in which dancers control the rhythm of the percussion with their movement. The prototype used an Xbox Kinect receiver to recognize users’ dance movements. Those movements were then mapped to trigger certain sounds and samples of drums, voice, bass, and piano. As the user dances, the music plays along. Moreover, Concert Playlist Generator used Songkick’s API to pull information about which concerts users have bought tickets to attend. Based on the results, the hack then tapped Spotify’s API to automatically generate a playlist based on the artists that a user would see in concert. Essentially, the app builds excitement for and awareness of upcoming concerts.

The Byrds & the Bee Gees app gave a comedic glimpse into what users’ parents might have listened to at the moment during which they were conceived. The app takes a user’s birthday, subtracts nine months from the date, and generates a Spotify playlist of the hits at the time.

Paul Lamere himself received an honorable mention with his Map of Music Styles. The interactive web encourages users to sift through hundreds of genre tags, ranging from alternative rock to everything as obscure as Norwegian black metal. Users can click a tag to listen to music and discover how different types of music relate to one another.

Overall, Hackers’ Weekend was a success, leading to the development of a new means of music interaction, discovery, and education.