Summary of the Article
Technology plays a key role in influencing the way various genres of music impact on the lives of individuals. Unlike in the past where many relied on music CDs, modern advancements such growth of the internet has led to mass downloading of music from the huge online collections that contain millions of tracks. The major challenge is how to fulfill the demands of tens of millions of people seeking to rely on the online sources for musical entertainment. In spite of music being readily available in digital form and other convenient ways of online distributions, there is need for interdisciplinary approach to tackle the issues of retrieving and organizing online music content. The multidisciplinary team in this case should include engineers, musicologists, and computer scientists among other experts who are capable of making music search across online networks easier. As the authors put it, there is need to develop Content Based Search, find better ways of integrating tools into the MIR frameworks as well as look for better way to enhance user preference modelling.
Summary of Results
MIR includes parties involved in the recording and aggressive distribution and dissemination of the music contents, end users who needs personalized music are also included in the framework so as to understand their needs. MIR also incorporates professionals such as copyright lawyers, music performers, teachers, musicologists and producers. Through this approach, therefore, it is likely that difficulties related to online music research will be solved. The authors identify aspects such as the need to rely on improvement of Metadata such that maintenance of the encoding process is made easier. The authors acknowledge the role played by technologies such as YouTube, Myspace and Pandora.com in making online music search easier. This is because the technologies give users precise results of what they are looking for. However, Pandora.com is time consuming given the fact that it takes a lot of time to enter Metadata. The other technologies such as YouTube and Myspace limit potential for successful music search due to traffic.
Personal Response regarding the Article
The article is a reliable source in proving how musical technologies improve the ability to satisfy end users through modification of controllers. Modern technologies such as Pandora.com, YouTube and Myspace are among major innovations that have led to a departure from traditional forms such as reliance on purchased CDs. The authors also descried the factors that limit successful search and downloading and ways in which a disciplinary team could be used to improve the current situation.
However, the authors concentrated on the characteristics of music while neglecting the issues of who causes the difficulties in the search and browsing functionality. Downloading of music is heavily linked with issues of infringement on the copyrights which then calls for monitoring of the actions of consumers accessing music online. This then implies that the authors ought to have included the concept of how access control measures could be put in place to limit the number of suspicious browsers such that it is easier to retrieve musical content by millions who prefer online music.
References
Casey, M., Veltkamp, R., & Goto, M. (2008). Content-Based Music Information Retrieval: Current Directions and Future Challenges. IEEE, 668-680.
