Adaptive Music

Music as we know it today is a ready-mix 2:42 “piece”. It doesn’t need to be like that. It is a result of technical limitations of the early day of sound recording, by 10 inch grammophone discs rotation at 78rpm in 1910.

And today, with us carrying those little computers in our pockets? The limitation is totaly obsolete, instead the computation power is there to generate music in realtime.

And we think it should be generated, in order to match to what we do, to the way we move, and to express how we feel. Our project is a first glimpse in that direction. We developed a new scheme to compose a music track. Instead of some verse-refrain form of the song, we divide the song in 9 different parts, with increasing intensity. The music player detects the intensity of the current situation, and plays the part of the song which matches.

Our app BAND IN THE TRUNK detects driving intensity. It plays the part with intensity 1 in the most calm situation, which is standstill of the car. The moment driver accelerates, the intensity switches to 2, and the music changes accordingly. And so on.

The video shows a short drive with band in the trunk. See what intensity the app detects, and what music it makes out it.

The adaption to the driving is just one way to change the music. There are so many other possibilities. For jogging it’s probably really cool. Dancing, gym, computer gameing (ops, that already exists), gliding, yoga, walking through a museum, taking an elevator … whatever you like to do with music. Thinking further, broadcasting adaptive music tracks is technically not very different from streaming music. So even the music on the radio could be responsive to it’s listeners, or at least responsive to the guy on the radio and his talk with the song in the background.

Or think of the wearables, and golden Apple watches, and their lack of killer apps … why not use the sensors to modulate the music?

Back to the first small step. Our project is currently on kickstarter: http://kck.st/1afkG0B
If we get funded by the crowd:
Our player will support download of adaptive music tracks from 3rd party sides. We will develop tools for musicians to make production of adaptive music tracks simple. For free. Like an Ableton template, and a driving simulation controlling it. The player supports an open API for programming different algorithms, so it works not only for driving. The player will be free.

The preview version is available as an reward for funders. We’d apprechiate any support!

About us:

Music enthusiasts and software developers Chris and Constanze founded hollyhook in August 2014. Felix, Frederik and Robin joined in October 2014 to complete the team. We are located in Stuttgart, Germany.