Echo Root

Clif, While checking out your "quantity-based" music [which, of course, is not necessarily a contra-distinction to "quality" - an elusive concept], I was getting frustrated with the random selection process and was actually thinking about it in the the shower [no kidding] in the context of the larger question of music discovery. I actually thought to myself, "You know, if Clif would just self-describe in a word or phrase what each of his pieces was all about, that would help."

Now you have started the process with this blog and it was at first glance serendipitous. But, upon reflection, self "tagging" is a logical and natural development. Self-tagging is the next sequential step to take to create a good music discovery algorithm.

When running down your list, I noted under Fusion the song, Can't Fake the Funk. Of course, I tried clicking on this piece based on your tag and the intriguing title, but nothing happened. I had to go to your Music page where I had to scroll down before I found "Song - Can't Fake the Funk". I was then able to check it out. I think the fuzz folks now need to figure out how to automatically connect word/phrase tags with uploaded songs. This would be another logical step in the "music discovery" algorithm we are all looking for. Listeners or artists shouldn't have to know BB coding or HTML to do this [it's great that you know all this and more].

Beyond the foregoing, there should be a way to "triangulate" the artist's self-described tag and a listener's possible interest in the word tag selected. I think the extant technology can start this process with the now commonly used box with "floating tags" of varying sizes according to number of hits/most recent hits/whatever.

Later on, the tagging and "triangulation" can become more sophisticated based on, say, the "match-up" of artist tags and listeners' "desired tags" or reviewers' "summary tags" to insert at the bottom of a review box or a "short comment" box for a listener to inject a descriptive tag after listening to a song. The search algorithm can then triangulate and target what make be in the universe of (i)what an artist thinks as descriptive of his/her work and (ii) what a listener wants to find. [Of course, works of art are complicated and cannot always be reduced to a single word or phrase - but I see this as an technical detail that would sort itself out according to a mass sorting process - don't ask me how since if I could figure out the "Page view" algorithm, I wouldn't be here typing away.]

Let's all [fuzz community] lean on the fuzz management and tech team to get on with it!

By the way, Can't Fake the Funk is a piece that more folks should hear. Here are some quick tags to use: Funky, Experimental Cool

Thanks TCC. I hate to respond to such a well thought out post with just a few words, but in this case, I agree completely. :)

Also, I haven't linked the songs yet, but plan to of course - as you mentioned, it's not small task at the moment. I have linked this post from my profile page and intend to keep it updated in "wiki" fashion until a better mechanism is in place.

I love the way you broke down your songs into categories. This is a great idea for the music lover who doesn't want to go through each song.

Holy smoke, how did u create those specific song links so quickly? [By the way, I think I am to blame for all the red lettering above because I neglected to add a to my red BB coding for tags in my previous blog. I hope this fixes the problem.

LOL, a lot of copy and pasting and 2 browsers :)

I also put together a mixtape for the guitar rock since it's the largest group of songs.

Since I am constantly in search of the "optimum music discovery algorithm" [whatever that may be], I conducted an experiment on the google search engine that you might be interested in repeating, using the following combination of words to see what would turn up and in what order:

1. echoroot funk
2. echo root funk
3. echoroot fake funk
4. echo root fake funk
5. echoroot funky

The google search engine and their "bots" are probably the most powerful/ubiquitous in the world at this point [I don't see how can other firm can catch up]. I feel that the elusive music discovery algorithm [that I hope the fuzz community will be the first to develop as a collective effort] will somehow combine (a) artist name, (b) self-described and listener-generated genres and word tags, and (c) the google search engine.

We will find the best way to get to your "Recommended Listening" yet!

I am honestly amazed at how fast Google picks up new music and posts on Fuzz. I have Google alerts set up for "Echo Root" and I usually get an email within hours of posting here with links to my new posts. Very cool. :)

Clif, let's keep this thread going [eventually others will join in and expand our perspectives and evolving concepts about search].

I think we are really onto something good here [but clearly not there yet] to help folks through the growing chaos of the web and online music communities. [Even at fuzz which is in start-up mode, as indie artists sign up in growing numbers as we speak, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find the artists and their specific songs that one "might like".]

I will put this blog up as an ongoing wiki-lesson at the Nightschool For Entrepreneurs. The Nightschool, as you may gather, is where I keep my permanent "value-index" to create social capital as an iterative exercise.

I will give this blog an appropriate title ["How To Improve The Odds For Being Discovered" - or something] to see if we can get more traction and ideas with a view to helping out all the artists and their works that get "Lost in translation" as the web and digital content cascades beyond imagination.

Moreover, as an important collateral benefit, it may well serve to diminish the growing spam [one-way "look at me" broadcasting rather than meaningful two-way interactive narrowcasting] by helping artists to become more web-savvy in showcasing their work using proper taxonomy and personalized tagging. Despite the spam [which is really just kid-stuff - though tiresome], I believe that 99% of the artists here, even with varying degrees of professional accomplishment depending on the stage of their development, have their heart in the right place and are passionate about their personal commitment. The folks here just need better tools to present their work.

Very cool, TCC. I'd love to see what other Fuzzers have to say on the topic.

I have been thinking about it a bit since posting this and making the mixtape for the "Guitar Rock" tracks. The end result of searching for songs that fit your tastes is to listen to them. While a list like I've compiled above is nice, it's much better to have the songs all in once place. The mixtape is a cool way to present this, but is currently static (i.e. can't be edited once published). The playlist however may be the answer, at least until a more robust solution is in place. The end goal would be dynamic playlists generated in real time by clicking on a tag in a wordmap or searching on a term like "funky" or "spoken word." The "search results" would be a playlist and the listener could easily forward through tracks in the player, as opposed to clicking through to individual song pages as would be the case in a standard "search result" scenario. The songs would most likely be sorted in order of "relevance" (in the traditional search engine sense) to the tag or search term.

I may toy with the playlists as an improvement to the format above a bit today. Hopefully the casual playlist browser won't think I'm an egomaniac for doing so. :)

More on tagging here.