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June 26, 2008

Meet Phil Nicolo.

When a stranger asks what the words "Conshohocken, Pennsylvania," mean to you, you'd be forgiven for not having a snappy response right out of the gate. For us, the notoriety of this town just west of Philadelphia rests on its distinctive role in recorded music. Conshohocken is home to Studio Four and the great Phil Nicolo, our guest in today's video. This Grammy-winning producer, engineer and mixer has worked with legions of legends, including Aerosmith, Billy Joel, Joan Osborne, Urge Overkill, Dave Grohl, Yoko Ono, Kris Kross, the Hooters and... wait for it... Mr. Zimmerman himself, Bob Dylan.

And if you would like to exchange Twitter tweets, "Pandora Presents..." is on there (as 'pandora_kevin') and friendly. Generally friendly, at least.

Cheers,
Kevin

Posted by Kevin Seal at 5:39 PM | Comments (16)

June 25, 2008

A new audio episode about drumming

In the wide world of instrumental playing, drumming is the closest sibling to dancing. A drumset player uses all four limbs, with each limb articulated and acting as an individual. And like dancing, small movements -- movements that may even be imperceptible to the casual viewer -- can make gigantic differences in the overall feel. Jeff Anthony, a veteran of recording sessions and tours, shows us some of these little secrets in this show about Drumming.

Thanks for listening,
Kevin

Posted by Kevin Seal at 12:37 AM | Comments (4)

June 24, 2008

Drum Feels With Toms and Kick :: The Musicology Show :: Vol. 36

Tiny changes in a drummer's playing can create dramatic shifts in a song's feel. Pandora dance music analyst and session drummer Jeff Anthony gets into his trick bag to show some of the little variations he throws in to boost a song's energy going into the chorus. He also breaks down the difference between the two-handed Britpop hi-hat style and the looser, one-handed Yankee hi-hat style. The audio on the outro, by the way, is from a session Jeff played on -- an album for singer-songwriter Stephen Ashbrook. (8 mins.)

Posted by Kevin Seal at 3:51 PM | Comments (0)

June 23, 2008

Matt Nathanson kicks off the Pandora Concert Series!

Well, we finally got our concert series off the ground, and what a start! Matt Nathanson came by and played an amazing acoustic set, including tracks from his latest album. Matt holds a special place in our hearts - one of the most spun artists on Pandora with over 11 million spins. We're all psyched to see all the great things happening for his career. Lord knows he deserves it after all these years.

It was great to have a bunch of folks in from the City of Oakland, Redevelopment/Economic Development office, Chamber of Commerce, Mayor Dellums staff, Steve Daubenspeck from Lockwood Elementary, and many other friends from the local community.

Matt kept everyone entertained with his music and humor. Check out the pictures from the event. This is the first in what we hope will be an enduring tradition at Pandora. Matt, thanks for kicking it off on the right note for us!

Cheers.

Tim (Founder)

Posted by Tim Westergren at 1:09 PM | Comments (6)

June 19, 2008

More video for you: Bending Sound Waves

Today's spanking-new offering is something we've been calling "8-bit Pandora Fantasia." In this video, Pandora's music operations manager Steve Hogan and I do battle with sine waves, synths, and tweaked-out sonic squiggles amidst a landscape of Excitebike, Double Dragon, Tetris, and other classic video-game environments. It's a little bit physics, a little bit acoustics, and a little bit rock n' roll: "Music 101: Bending Sound Waves." We are unafraid -- staunchly unafraid -- to let our geek flag fly.

(Here's where you get your free subscription, either in iTunes or any other reader.)

Castlevania, y'all,
Kevin

Posted by Kevin Seal at 4:26 PM | Comments (32)

June 16, 2008

Viewer Mail... part 3

A couple more verbal answers to commonly asked questions. This week's topics:

WHY DOESN'T PANDORA HAVE WORLD MUSIC?
CAN I BAN AN ARTIST FROM MY STATION?
HOW IS BOOKMARKING DIFFERENT FROM A THUMB UP?
HOW CAN I GET MY BAND ON PANDORA?

(One minor correction to this video -- if you want to ban an artist from a particular station, you only need to thumb down TWO songs from that artist, not three.)

Please feel free to post any questions you'd like elaborated... we're all ears!

Cheers. Tim (Founder)

Embed this video:

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Posted by Tim Westergren at 12:28 PM | Comments (41)

June 12, 2008

PALO ALTO Get-together Tuesday, June 17th, 2008!

We are having a Pandora meet-up at the Lucie Stern Community Center in Palo Alto. Hope to see you there--excited to meet our Palo Alto listeners!

If you would like to attend, please RSVP by sending an email to Angie at tour@pandora.com with PALO ALTO in the subject line.

When: Tuesday, June 17th, 2008 @ 7 PM
Where: The Lucie Stern Community Center, 1305 Middlefield Rd, Palo Alto, CA 94301 (map)

Cheers,
Tim

Posted by Tim Westergren at 4:33 PM | Comments (5)

June 11, 2008

Happy Father's Day from Pandora

Some people hold the misconception that musicians are irresponsible ne'er-do-wells and slackers. It's a misconception that we are pleased to dispel. In honor of daddies everywhere, we meet three musical men who are also great fathers. Our guests this week are Darian Gray, Jeffrey Burr, and Eenor, three young dads who manage to balance their family lives with their creative endeavors. See how their kids influence their music, and vice versa, on an episode we call "Studio Stories: Dads Who Rock." Happy Father's Day!

If you want to download the full-sized video rather than stream it from the page, subscribe to the feed in iTunes or any other feedreader.

Papa's got a brand new bag,
Kevin

Posted by Kevin Seal at 10:59 AM | Comments (11)

June 10, 2008

Play Listen Repeat Vol. 38

What's in a voice?
You could make a good case that popular music is all about the voice, since for some listeners a likable or even lovable voice is all it takes to make or break a song. But, as with most things musical, what can be stated simply - "I love that voice!" - turns out to be practically unfathomable upon further reflection; and so it appears to be with the human voice.

To start, there are some purely technical dimensions to any vocal performance: things like dynamics, pitch, and rhythm. Obviously, these determine to some extent a voice's effectiveness and power in music (though I might argue that they are really only noticed to the extent in which they are missing and thereby reduce the believability of the vocal). Be that as it may, surely we'd all agree that the various technical aspects of singing can and sometimes do provide the basis for an effective vocal performance.

But of course we all also know that there's much more to our experience of any vocal beyond the simple technical facilities of the singer. For example, while timbre (the texture and sound of the voice) has a musical dimension, it also engenders a kind of basic, animal sense of attraction or aversion. Just as we find some people to be beautiful and others not to be, the same is true of voices. This consideration is not technical, but it is certainly a primary determinant of our reaction to a voice, right?

OK. So far so good. We've established that technical and timbral qualities affect our reactions to voices (no surprise there). Now we can get to the good part.

We human beings are so deeply attuned to the nuances of other human voices that a whole bunch of other information comes sneaking in along with that pleasing or grating timbre, that good pitch, or that laconic phrasing. There is something fundamental and deep that is suggested simply by the way the voice is used in the song; and this 'ethos' (or 'vibe', if you prefer) is very influential in our determination of whether we like something or not.

For example, in big, mainstream pop music, it is not always the music or even the lyrics that are at the core of a listener's aversion. The thing that turns some people off is actually just the way the singers sing. There can be excessive grandiosity, embarrassing melodramatics around fairly commonplace emotions, earnestness, over-embellishment of the basic music (aka showing off), or just an imbalance between the content of the lyrics and they way they are expressed. Any or all of these can combine to create a smarmy kind of "largeness" to the persona that the voice projects. There can be a deep sense of self-satisfaction in some pop singers' voices, to which many people not only can't relate, but against which their very souls rebel. It's a kind of singing that literally offends some people's principles.

On the other hand, it may precisely be the lack of these kinds of grand vocal gestures that repels some listeners from the voices in other genres, like punk or metal music. The very nakedness and even ugliness of the voice might go so far as to imply a decadent or unseemly culture, a tendency to violence, anti-social behavior, nihilism, and so on.

In the plain vocals of some folk or vintage country music, or in the sophisticated vocals of some jazz pieces, there may be a great deal of meaning for older listeners, but nothing for certain young listeners to latch on to. In this case, the plainness or elegance simultaneously point to and express fully developed world-views to those who hold them, while having basically no meaning to those who don't (obviously it is not only the vocal that communicates such things, but for those vocal-centric listeners, it might as well be).

If you ask me, every competent vocal performance expresses nothing less than a set of beliefs (part of the problem with incompetent vocals is that they can't choose what they do or don't want to express, but that's another subject). Maybe understanding this dimension of the voice can help us to expand our range of beliefs, or maybe it will just make it easier to understand exactly why a piece of music hits us in a certain way.

Posted by Michael Zapruder at 11:06 AM | Comments (10)

June 7, 2008

Washington, DC Get-together POSTPONED!

It is with great regret that I'm writing to let you know that, for personal reasons, I have to postpone our town hall meeting this Wednesday. To say I'm extremely disappointed would be a collosal understatement. The response from listeners in the DC area was utterly overwhelming and it promised to be an evening to remember...we even had some local Pandora artists who rsvp'd and offered to provide live music before and after.

Don't worry. We are already trying to figure out a new date.

In the meantime, as I know you may have questions about the rates issues that are so imminent, know that we will be in touch as soon as there is a specific action to take.

My apologies again for this late notice. I sincerely hope you'll be able to attend when we get back on the calendar. I very much look forward to it.

Tim
Founder, Pandora

Posted by Tim Westergren at 12:38 AM | Comments (5)

June 6, 2008

A new audio episode, all about melodies

Think of your favorite song, and chances are good that the first element popping into your mind is the melody. It's that melodic arc that leaves the indelible mark, inspiring you to sing along in your car. This week, special guest Melody Parker sings as she surveys the steps and leaps taken by some of the 20th Century's greatest melodicists: Jerome Kern, George Gershwin, Brian Wilson, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Richard Rodgers, just to name a few. Spend ten minutes thinking about melodic construction, and watch your brain light up.

Tra la la,
Kevin

Posted by Kevin Seal at 8:59 AM | Comments (8)

June 4, 2008

SAVE THE DATE! Palo Alto Get-Together June 17th, 2008

Details to be announced soon!
When: Tuesday, June 17thth, 2008
Where: TBD

Cheers,

Tim

Posted by Tim Westergren at 1:10 PM | Comments (5)

June 3, 2008

From the lab: Pandora Desktop Beta

Update: The Beta version of the desktop application described in this blog was pretty much a failed experiment for us. We learned a lot though and just today launched a totally new desktop player that is part of our Pandora One subscription offering. Learn all about Pandora One here: Pandora One, the new destkop app here: Pandora One Desktop and share your comments with us here: Blog Post announcing Pandora One

And for posterity, here's the original post on the "old style" desktop app:

We've always wanted to find a simple way to deliver Pandora as a desktop application -- it's probably been on our to do list longer than any single feature. Today we're dipping our toe into those waters for the first time with the release of a Beta version of Pandora Desktop.

Truth is, this little guy is pretty simple. It's just a way to pull Pandora out of a browser window and make it accessible with a single click from the Windows tray or Mac dock. We've built in quick access to common Pandora features from the tray/dock menu (pause, change stations, etc). If nothing else it ensures that you'll never accidentally browse away from Pandora and lose your stream.

One big caveat: it's important to understand that at Pandora we have big licensing and streaming bills to pay and from the beginning we've been working hard to figure out that piece of the puzzle. That means that advertising is an integral part of the Pandora experience and in an effort to keep the advertising as unobtrusive as possible we've focused on graphical ads rather than audio ads. The one downside to that is that we need lots of pixels to run the ads, so one thing you'll find with the desktop app is it's not some tiny little widget. As nice as that would be, it would make it basically impossible for us to cover our costs with advertising. So, at least for now, the main window of Pandora Desktop (which you can minimize) looks pretty much exactly like the Pandora.com home page.

One little caveat: this is a Beta and we're asking you to take a look and send us your thoughts and feedback to beta-feedback@pandora.com. We're interested in everything from bug reports, to feature requests, to commentary about the general utility of the application.

The application is built using Adobe AIR, which should automatically install if you don't already have it. If you have trouble with that step, there are links for a two-step manual install too.

Known issues: performance of the Mac version is more CPU intesive than we'd like it to be. This seems to be an Adobe AIR issue and we're working with Adobe to understand what we might be able to do to improve the situation.

To get started, visit this page: http://www.pandora.com/desktop and don't forget to send us your feedback.

Posted by Tom Conrad at 4:17 PM | Comments (123)