Friday, September 03, 2010

Music Discovery Project - Grandpa Edition

I wanted to show off some of the fancy tricks my Android phone can do to my grandpa, but his macular degeneration has left him mostly blind. This means that he really can't appreciate anything visual on the phone. After some thought, it hit me: I could show him Pandora.

I asked him for an artist, and he suggested Frank Sinatra. And sure enough, Pandora kicked out one of Frank's song. Nothing too special there. As the stream played, we thumbed-up some songs (the Glenn Miller Band, for example) and thumbed-down others (sorry Harry Connick Jr., guess Grandpa's not a fan). The demonstration turned out to be totally blind friendly (of course, I was pressing the thumbs up and down).

From my grandfather's perspective, he got to witness the sweet technology behind Pandora that learns what you likes and plays just that.

But the real winner here was me. Not only did I get to appreciate what my grandpa likes to listen to in terms of music, but it provided the perfect segue into family lore and other stories.

I definitely suggest sitting down with your loved ones and giving this a try. And best of all, you end up with a radio station you can listen to that you know they'd love.

Here's what we came up with. Mind you, I hope to refine it further with Grandpa next time I visit him:

Listen to: Grandpa Irv's Perfect Station

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous5:13 PM

    I love the story about your grandfather and technology. But what I found most memorable is the time that you took out to show him those things.thats great in my book. Technology is evolving faster and faster everyday.Take a look at this software for musicians. http://www.mafoca.com Best of luck to you and your grand father. Glad you posted.

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