Music is universal. It is an essential aspect of every culture in the world, and has been bringing people together throughout human history. We use music to tell stories, express emotion, worship gods, entertain ourselves, seduce, celebrate, and often for no reason at all. As almost everyone can attest, music simply feels good; it feels necessary. String instruments evoke the harmonious potential latent in vocal cords, drums manifest our beating hearts, the Korg collection speaks for itself and the often irresistible urge to dance arises from a subconscious desire to return to that perfect fluid state of the womb, wherein our bodies moved in effortless rhythm to our mothers’ pulse. Only does music in its countless manifestations bring us immense enjoyment, it is also an ineluctable expression of the human experience.
Music and the Body
This intimate connection between music and the body has been demonstrated time and again. Scientists have shown that plants grow faster and stronger when exposed to classical music than when exposed to death metal. Babies are believed to benefit when pregnant mothers habitually listen to soothing music. And we all know firsthand how quickly bad music provokes anxiety, while gentle harmonies sooth and lull us into blissful states. The connection between music and health is so strong, in fact, that entire branches of medicine have sprouted up in recent years, dedicated to sound therapy, which can alleviate a wide range of maladies through the power of music.
But recent breakthroughs in biometric technology hold even greater potential, and may soon revolutionise music in unprecedented ways by harnessing this somatic-auditory connection. BioBeats is an innovative new app that utilizes iOS devices to record biometric data and generate custom music based upon what it learns about the listener’s body. Users simply place a finger over the camera, and the app detects subtle color changes associated with heart rate and stress levels. Users then select a genre, and BioBeats produces tracks to complement the listener’s mood—if it finds stress, it plays soothing music; if it detects excitement, it plays something upbeat. More impressive still, the app also tracks biometric data over time with the aim of correcting habitual stress patterns. If that Tuesday morning traffic jam consistently gets your blood pressure up, for example, BioBeats will learn to anticipate it and alleviate your stress with timely melodies.
Future Technology
Biometric music generation is still only in its infancy. The future of this technology will almost certainly be social—music, after all, is essentially a social activity. As an indication of things to come, the BioBeats release party featured a DJ who used biometric data from the crowd to supply the night’s entertainment. It is conceivable that more advanced biometric devices will eventually be integrated into clothing, wristwatches, and smartphones, which would be capable of connecting people in similar emotional states. Imagine two single people in a nightclub, both enjoying the music and wanting to dance—perhaps the color of their watches could help them overcome the social awkwardness of being the first one out on the dance floor?
As BioBeats and similar technologies become more sophisticated, we will no doubt soon see them incorporated into a wide range of media. Videogames seem to provide a particularly fertile ground for biometric integration; they could become more or less difficult according to the user’s adrenalin levels, for instance. But the horizons of biometric technology are limitless and expanding each day. It is already not so far-fetched to envision a future where our favorite music is generated by a combination of our heartbeat and an iOS algorithm. With the development of ever-subtler biometric sensors and advancements in the science of interactive media, the human relationship to media is on the verge of a revolution. Though only time will tell what impact this revolution might bring, it promises to integrate our bodies with technology in ways that were hitherto unimaginable.
So will heartbeats be tomorrow’s DJs? Thanks to BioBeats, it seems they have already become today’s.
