Recently I had the opportunity to participate in the Music Genome Project, where teams of labcoat-wearing scientists with various frightening looking vials and needles attempted to discover the genetic structure of music by conducting various probes on their volunteers, otherwise known as guinea pigs, lab rats, web search gomers, and people who'll do anything for a couple slices of pizza.

Actually that was just all lies. Lies, I tell you! Anyway, the "real" Music Genome Project, code-named Pandora, ended up being like my own personal Sir Mix a Lot. Pandora lets you create radio stations, and you guide what music is coming up. Don't like that song that's playing? You "guide" Pandora and it humbly promises that that song will never be played again. I took some notes on what the service told me as I went along, and here they are:

• Pandora selects the next song based on tonality, musical signature, etc. For example, I chose David Wilcox for my first radio station, and got Elliot Smith, Neil Young, Bert Jansch, and more in my radio lineup. This is what Pandora told me initially: "Based on what you've told us so far, we're playing this track because it features mild rhythmic syncopation, major key tonality, acoustic sonority, a good dose of acoustic guitar pickin' and acoustic rhythm guitars." Well, of course you are. That's what I wanted, was major key tonality and..all that other stuff you're talking about that sounds really music-y.
• The bottom of the radio screen thingy has a button titled "Guide Us." Click on that, and you'll get these directions:
  • Why is this song playing?
  • I really like this song-play more like it
  • I don't like this song, it's not what this section should play.
  • I want to add more kinds of music to this statiion
  • I'm tired of this station; let's create a new one.
• Guns and Roses came up (Patience) and I frantically clicked on Guide Us, and the "I don't like this song" option (there unfortunately was not an option for "this song makes my ears bleed"). Pandora said "Sorry about that. We'll try something else, and we'll never play that song again on this station." Then it went back to Bert Jansch.
• I asked for Nichole Nordeman, and got the FAQ questions page that told me exactly why Pandora was not going to play anything from her; mostly because they haven't indexed her stuff yet.

Pandora is launching to the general public very soon, and while it's not going to be a free service, new users will be able to use Pandora for free for a short period, then can subscribe to the service for $36 for one year of unlimited use. I liked this very much; the ability to mix my own radio station is pretty fun.

Related: Find more audio content on the web with Audio Specific Search Engines and Directories.