Better Spotify Playlists through Music Theory & Discrete Optimization
summary
An algorithm that turns Spotify playlists into smoother sequences by minimizing jarring key changes using concrete music theory (harmonic series and the Camelot relationships) pairs Spotify’s Echo Nest audio features (key, mode, tempo, timbre, danceability) with an OptaPlanner constraint solver using chaining, shadow variables and Drools-style rules. A prototype web service (GraphQL/Apollo, Prisma, AWS Lambda) optimizes large inputs — an 800-track test runs ~3,000 move-evaluations/sec and drastically reduces offending transitions — Spotfire IO is functional as a prototype but not yet fully deployed. harmonic series Camelot system
AI-written summary · about
chapters (57)
- 0:00Intro
- 1:56Pythagoras
- 4:26College
- 8:50Music Theory
- 12:46Beyonce Chemical Brothers
- 15:35Sine Waves
- 18:02Subharmonics
- 18:38Playlist
- 20:24Jacob Collier
- 21:53Camelot System
- 23:13Transitions
- 23:58Music in the Cloud
- 24:34Playlist Pervasive
- 25:04Reordering Tracks
- 25:20Ryoichi Sakamoto
- 26:15Discrete Optimization
- 26:35Too Long
- 27:00Optimization
- 27:16Rules
- 28:04Cloud
- 28:15Spotify API
- 28:34Spotify Playlist API
- 28:44Francis Scott Key
- 29:02Spotify Acquisitions
- 29:31Spotify Echo Nest
- 29:45Key Index
- 30:59Optive Planner
- 32:26Model Domain
- 33:18Chaining
- 34:16Tree of Entities
- 34:43Playlist Optimization
- 35:12Pining Solution
- 35:53Series of Facts
- 36:21Hard vs Soft
- 37:56The Rule
- 39:07Reedy Tree
- 39:19Key Rules
- 40:06Math
- 41:04Key Rule
- 41:32Score
- 42:03Chess
- 43:15Playlists
- 43:38Kaki King
- 43:51Track Transitions
- 44:01Local Optimum
- 44:16Local Search
- 44:44Results
- 46:00Failure
- 46:34Apollo
- 46:45Prisma
- 47:08GraphQL
- 47:22AWS Lambda
- 47:57Extract Path
- 48:15Lambda
- 48:43GitHub
- 49:02Pantry
- 49:21Thank you
related talks
40mPowering Spotify's Audio Personalization Platform
59mClosing Keynote: Paul Lamere
20mSo tell me, what is your musical taste?
28mLearning Fast: Home Experimentation and Open Research at Spotify
39mProphet at scale to tune & forecast time series at Spotify
29mHow Spotify Does ML At Scale
27mPlay
13mRevolutionizing the Music Industry with Data Science