A MUSIC SEARCH ENGINE TO INTERACT WITH THE TOPIC OF MUSIC WITH MORE INSIGHT
There are four types of luck: blind luck, exploratory motion (which is the motion of moving around in order to be productive), sagacity (that can be defined as chance that is favoring prepared minds, even if it is not the usual meaning) and, finally, serendipity. Serendipity can be defined as the combination of chance and creativity, as a pleasant surprise. Chance is something that cannot be predicted, expected or known. Creativity is the ability to make something new and meaningful in the world. So, serendipity is the capacity to create something meaningful from the emerging unknown. How can it happen and where? In an environment created by human beings, where unplanned events are more likely to happen. Such an environment is out of the daily routine and generally encourages people and various elements or topics to interact.
In the field of music research, can a search engine enhance serendipity? Serendipity, in context, is not always easy to define. However a music search engine is without any doubt a tool that invites music listeners to leave their day-to-day routine in order to interact with the topic of music, in various ways. Indeed it is to create such conditions that the YMusic search engine, a prototype relying on a new music theory, is designed. In fact, now and then, it is inevitable, music discovery is made by chance. But when a music search engine based on musical criteria supports serendipity by offering more control to music listeners, they can acquire a real musical knowledge and find out much more about their tastes. Listening to pieces of music via the search engine, listeners can, gradually, spend less time searching for new music.
As the technologies that learners use to play with partly define them, they select them carefully. In the case of a search engine, their expectations concern the relevance of the results. How can they judge? In the case of YMusic, one element to take into account is the music theory on which the search engine is based. In fact, YMusic is not a music archive that classifies music with cultural tags. Each piece of music analyzed by the search engine is studied in accordance with specific musical criteria coming from the associated music theory. The music theory being the product of careful work, the search engine does not provide random results to listeners: these results are the fruit of calculations. At the same time, the discovery of new music can satisfy listeners’ curiosity and the result is that they can become more engaged with more and more styles of music, learning more and more each time they use the search engine. Thanks to the YMusic search engine, all music listeners, even when they are not musicians or music researchers, can, at least at an elementary level, become music thinkers and interact directly with music without any value judgment or opinion expressed by a third party.