)Following last week’s discussion of expertise (be sure to see the comments also) comes an entirely different perspective on the subject. Sting, formerly of The Police and more recently a genre-spanning solo musician, had his brain scanned while listening to a variety of music selections. The songs were grouped by the way Sting’s brain responded while hearing them. Other music comparison algorithms, like the one used by Pandora to recommend songs, rely on features of the music that are quantified in a more objective and explicit fashion and tend to include either genre or genre-specific qualities. Using Sting’s subjective reaction to the songs revealed connections that wouldn’t necessarily show up from other analyses because of the obvious dissimilarities. For example, Libertango by Astor Piazzola, instrumental dance music from Argentina, and Girl by The Beatles, a British folk rock song, were judged among the most similar pairs by Sting’s brain.
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