Location Based Music is Finally Here

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Get ready to experience the National Mall like you’ve never heard it before. Bluebrain, two experimental musicians based out of D.C., have created a location based album that actually syncs with the sights at the famous D.C. landmark.

How does “The National Mall” album work? The two brothers behind Bluebrain created an app that uses a listener’s position, determined with the device’s built-in GPS, to choose what composition to play. Areas of the Mall have been tagged with a specific melody, so as you visit each zone, you’ll hear the music the composers picked for that location. It also means that each time you change up your walking path, you’ll get a new experience.

“It is truly the first location-aware album in the sense that it is a work of authored music-different melodies, different rhythms, different instrumentation, and different songs entirely are to be heard at their designated locations,” Bluebrain explained on their website.

The site-specific album will be released later this spring for the iPhone, Android, and iPad (in that order). They hope to expand the project and create pieces for Prospect Park in Brooklyn, New York and Highway 1, known as the Pacific Coast Highway, in California.

While this might arguably be the first location based site-specific album, this isn’t music’s first foray into the location based realm. Apps like SoundTracking allow you to tag an area with the song you’re listening to at any moment, along with a picture and comment. That info gets posted on the SoundTracking site as well as other social media services, and visitors can opt to listen to a 30-second sample of the song and comment on your experience. Spotisquare lets premium Spotify account holders create a community playlist for a specific venue.

And take Soundtrckr, easily one of our favorites, which creates local digital mix tapes out of songs that users select for a given place. It works like an Internet radio station instead of a streaming playlist, which helps ensure that everyone is experiencing the same music at the same time. You can also share the playlists with people who aren’t in the same spot as you.

Although…doesn’t that kind of defeat the purpose?

More on TIME.com:

South By Southwest Interactive: The Dawn of Location-Based Gaming

 

AT&T Rolls Out Location-Based Text Messages for Nearby Deals

How To Find Location-Based Deals