Polyphonic Hmi: Mixing Music and Math

Mohammad Kaashif Alam        September 7, 2015

Case study, week 4

Polyphonic HMI: mixing music and math

  Along the pursuit of perfect, in any art form, the question always invariably comes into play of whether a masterpiece is composed using raw, unbridled emotion, or by using a prescribed set of characteristics that are guaranteed to at least have a higher potential and lower risk than the former. The music industry has come to this critical turning point with the inception of Polyphonic’s HSS (hit song science). As a music producer I’m insulted to believe that music can be broken down into a mathematical formula and judged based upon that criteria, but as a business man numbers don’t lie. According to the company’s CEO, McCready, the HSS technology can predict whether a song that we have will make the Singles Top 40, with an 80% rate of success. This number blows our company’s success rate of 14 % (an industry leader) out of the water. What’s even more impressive, is that the machine proved even more accurate under a small test run; The HSS was able to correctly whether a song would be a hit or not in sample of ten recently released songs with 90% accuracy. The way this machine works is to analyze each hit song and break it down and assessing the mathematical pattern that is present. Then each pattern is compared to the pattern of another song and clustered were formed. Polyphonic realized that the closer the mathematical pattern of a song is to one of these clusters then the higher probability that this song will be a hit. It’s a piece of machinery that is set to change the way music is produced.

Marvel Enterprises, Inc.

Marvel has had many ups and downs since its establishment, but one thing has always remained constant for them: the popularity of Spider-man. With out any doubt that this line was Marvels most popular and well recognized brands, The Spider-man movie franchise was the launching pad that sprang this company back towards success (along with some smart business decisions). Among those intelligent business decisions was the purchase of the company by Toy Biz, saving Marvel from going bankrupt, and the business plan that they implemented. By franchising the company’s different comic lines, the company would be able to generate revenue via merchandise production and by movies and T.V. series. This led to the Spider-man movie line which led to the resurgence of comic book popularity. This led to different variations of Spider-man coming out, and the question of how long Marvel can continue with making spider-man merchandise. I believe that in theory Marvel can indefinitely continue with different variations of Spider-man because it will always have a loyal following which range from all ages. But it may not be the best business decisions, because while the loyal followers may stick around to see what comes next, the general audience will soon tire of Spider-man, diminishing its over all popularity. For this reason, I feel like Marvel should step back from Spider-man and build up one of its lesser known superheroes and let the Marvel name and its recent success generate an audience base. The beauty of Marvel is that it has a seemingly inexhaustible line of superheroes.