Music Hack Day is a

Hack Day A hackathon (also known as a hack day, hackfest, datathon or codefest; a portmanteau of '' hacking'' and ''marathon'') is an event where people engage in rapid and collaborative engineering over a relatively short period of time such as 24 or 48 h ...

specifically for the music industry. The first was organised by Dave Haynes and James Darling and held at the London offices of

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

newspaper over the weekend 11/12 July 2009. The event was attended by around 200 developers who had 24 hours to build new hacks or

web applications A web application (or web app) is application software that is created with web technologies and runs via a web browser. Web applications emerged during the late 1990s and allowed for the server to dynamically build a response to the request, ...

using the

API An application programming interface (API) is a connection between computers or between computer programs. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how to build ...

's or tools of 10 participating companies. These companies were

7digital 7digital Group PLC is a British company that offers access to music, tracking and reporting for clients. London-based, 7digital provides end-to-end music services for the fitness, social media, DSPs, and gaming industries with brands such as B ...

, BBC Music,

The Echo Nest The Echo Nest is a music intelligence and data platform for developers and media companies. Owned by Spotify since 2014, the company is based in Somerville, MA. The Echo Nest began as a research spin-off from the MIT Media Lab to understand ...

, Gigulate,

Last.fm Last.fm is a music website founded in the United Kingdom in 2002. Utilizing a music recommender system known as "Audioscrobbler", Last.fm creates a detailed profile of each user's musical preferences by recording the details of the tracks they ...

, PeoplesMusicStore,

Songkick Songkick is a concert discovery service owned by Warner Music Group. The service allows users to search for upcoming concert events in their area, and also track individual artists to receive notifications of upcoming shows in their area. It also ...

SoundCloud SoundCloud is a German audio streaming service owned and operated by SoundCloud Global Limited & Co. KG. The service enables its users to upload, promote, and share audio. Founded in 2007 by Alexander Ljung and Eric Wahlforss, SoundCloud is ...

. The weekend also included workshops from companies like

RjDj RjDj (Reality Jockey Ltd.) was a startup founded in late 2008 by last.fm co-founder Michael Breidenbruecker. The company was based in London and was run by a small team of four employees. Its mission was to create sonic experiences specifically ...

and Tinker.it and anyone else who wished to arrange one. Many developers stayed overnight at the venue and over 35 hacks were built, submitted and demo'ed by the end of the weekend. Since that first event, more than 50 Music Hack Day events have taken place around the world, with over 3500 participants who have built over 1300 innovative hacks. The events are attended by a diverse range of music and technology enthusiasts. A related event, that includes a music hack component, but with a broader focus on performance and research, is the

Music Tech Fest MTF Labs is a series of festivals and events encouraging innovation through creative work, particularly music. Since the first Music Tech Fest in 2012, a community has formed around the festival with over 7,500 members from fields such as medicin ...

, a festival of music ideas that brings musicians, artists, hackers, academics and industry together.

References

{{reflist Computer-related events

Further reading

External links

References