WEBSITE: Pandora

Last year I stumbled on to the website Pandora through a musician's discussion group, and then I heard about it on the KCRW podcast, On The Beat.


Imagine a radio station where you start with a single artist and they offer up another artist who is similar. Then based on your thumbs up or down, they play more music that's similar. And so and so on.

Like it? Don't look it from terrestrial radio. Look instead toward the Music Genome Project, a very ambitious attempt to create a database of the musical qualities of a song and the artist. Some of their keywords are "acoustic sonority" and "melodic phrasing".

It's interesting to see the depth the MGP has gone to create an artificial measure of the music. It's not perfect, although your choices ultimately refine your future selections. And don't look for obscure artists or those on independant labels. For example, I couldn't find anything by Tree House performers, Mark Erelli or Brian Joseph.

But I have found a bunch of artists that I like, many of whom are on our Wish List and have even played our house. The first artist to play our house that I "discovered" on Pandora will be Edie Carey, coming in December 2007!

Here's my playlist, what Pandora calls my "station":

http://www.pandora.com/?sc=sh80898642488003474

You'll need the Flash plug-in and an account to login, but it's free and they have a strong privacy policy.

Enjoy, and send me your stations, too! I'll post them here for the rest of us to enjoy.

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STATIONS
(1/25) Greg Pool's "Tree House Concerts Radio"
(1/26) Ed Pare's "Blue Man Group Radio"
(1/26) Bonnie Burnell's "Carbon Leaf Radio"
(1/26) Bill Stacey's "Bob Marley Radio"