Music and Memory

After an initial investigation and multiple brainstorm sessions, bouncing ideas back and forth between the two of us, we decided to explore the relation between music and memory. In part because of our own experiences with music and how when each of us hears a distinct song we think of a particular moment in our respective lives. Undoubtedly, music is one of the most engaging and emotionally powerful stimuli.

Read related post at nundroo.com

User Data

To collect a significant amount of real user data we created a form (connected to a database) and made it available publicly. The form collected 9 attributes (both quantitative and qualitative): memory description, artist, song, country, time, emotion, intensity, feeling and a sketch. The response was beyond expectation: we gathered about 200 records in 4 days. But more importantly, the user data we collected showed us that the stories attached to the memories are the fascinating part of what we are trying to work with.

Graphical User Interface

As mentioned we collected a number of attributes in the form, both quantitative and qualitative. Our initial approach was statistical, abstracted from emotion, a dry representation of data. It soon became apparent that such a visualization did not communicate the core of our project: it did not encompass the emotional qualities inherent to the data set. Going back to the core, and taking the stories as a starting point we sketched out different ways of accessing and displaying the content.

After many creative sessions we concluded that emotions, music (songs, artists) and memories (stories) are the main attributes, in other words the essence of our visualization. Consequently we designed a three column interface that would reflect this approach, with a distinct focus on the memories, the core of this application.

The very positive public response and enthusiasm made us realize that it would be a good idea publish our interface and make it available online. So, keep an eye out on http://www.musicmemory.net within the next few weeks. Right now we are working on refining the interface, programming in Flash, coding PHP, MySQL database, XML and anything necessary to make this work.

Participants