New app from Marit Larsen – powered by MusicDNA™

Friday 16 December is the release date for a free and innovative Marit Larsen app in Apple’s AppStore.

The new iPhone app for Marit Larsen provides news from the artist, via her blog, her Facebook page and Twitter account, and also offers clips from all the songs she has released (including purchase links to all), all music videos, gives a list of her upcoming tour dates, with links to ticket purchases and maps showing how she plays. But there is more. The app utilizes the new technology MusicDNA – which is based on the standard MPEG-7.

What is MPEG7, you may ask?  In essence it is a standard for describing sound, mood, melody, genre and the intensity of a recorded song. You click on the track and get displayed genre, intensity, frequency, melody, brightness, mood and tempo. Going deeper into the MusicDNA metadata, you get all the liner notes, displaying a list of everyone who has contributed the recording, the vocal and songwriter, with each instrument.

The MPEG-7 standard was completed in 2002, but it is now becoming public domain. Moving forward, you could ask for a romantic, dramatic or soporific play list – and the app will put it all together, based on metadata from all the songs you have available. The future, plain and simple.

“EMI Music Norway has for years looked forward to develop apps and services based on the unique and value-added music format MusicDNA, and finally the first app is here. With the digital distribution of music the booklet disappeared and thus much of the information about the music. However, MusicDNA brings this information back along with a lot of information about the music we have not had access to before. This makes it easier for us music lovers to find new music we like and we can dive deeper into the music we already like. Bach Technology develops more and more features, and we look forward to continuing working with them,” says Jarle Savio, who is A & R Manager at EMI Music Norway.

“Bach Technology launched MusicDNA during MIDEM 2010 and has since then developed a range of products based on our MusicDNA. Last summer we launched the first mobile and Facebook app that can recognize music based on MusicDNA. After a HackDay in Bergen held by the company MediaArena with focus on open innovation, we got together with EMI Norway the idea of developing an Artist App with MusicDNA as value-added feature. We are delighted that EMI chose us as their partner, and not to mention that Marit Larsen agreed to be the first artist to test MusicDNA in an Artist App. We look forward to continue working together with EMI and Marit in 2012 with a premium version with a range of innovative MusicDNA components to be available for Marits fans,” says Dagfinn Bach,  President and R&D Director of Bach Technology AS.

Bach Techonology has initially tested this on Marit Larsen’s catalogue, and now offers a free app for Marit Larsen fans and for anyone who is curious about the new technology. In 2012, there will be released a Premium version, with new and more sophisticated MusicDNA features added.

You will of course be able to utilize the app together with Marit Larsen songs you’ve already bought, and that is in your iTunes.

The App is available for iPhone and iPad, and Android version is just around the corner.
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/marit-larsen/id488246741?mt=8&uo=4