The World is surrounded by a host of power laws. When one sets some threshold in groups following these power laws, one is evidently producing sparse sets. Here is a case from "Britain's got talent", a similar show to "American Idol" in the U.S. and "Nouvelle Star" in France:
and the less sparse set:
From a compressive sensing point of view, the big question is: could we determine which one is a good singer among many when all of them are singing at the same time while randomly modulating each of their voices ?
Other examples of Sparsity in Everything can be found in this collection of entries.
Credit: The idea of that first video came from reading Seth Goldin's blog on the dip.
Other examples of Sparsity in Everything can be found in this collection of entries.
Credit: The idea of that first video came from reading Seth Goldin's blog on the dip.
Dear Igor
ReplyDeleteWhat i especially like in your "Impressive Singing" theory is that the most significant tone arised in
"Britain's got talent", while the backplane is "American Idol"'s.
From a signal practitionist point of view, it may seem that one is setting a threshold between upper and lower castes in different singer spaces. Unless one implicitely considers bigger sets of somewhat unrelated voices. I'd suggest "The Angles will rise again" for the show.
As a signal gardener, i look at shower singers as the breeding ground for more talented ones. Sure thing, such TV shows (for Total Variation?) probably bring some of the latter into light. But then wouldn't the clapping noise sometimes create so-called wonders from nothing?
None of this would happen in "Compressive sensing" of course.
Laurent
Laurent,
ReplyDeleteI think you are underestimating the amount of work it takes to get to that level of singing, it may well have started in the shower, but there had to be considerable work outside of the shower to get to that level. As the TV shows show, even a nice voice is not enough, work has to take place (about 10,000 hours, see http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2008/12/10000-hours.html )
As for the British vs U.S shows, it is just a question of getting videos from different countries and is not meant to show any disapproval of the U.S. selection process (which has produced, I think Kelley Clarkson and maybe even Usher).
My take is that only about 3% of the population could really reach those high levels in any profession and the schtick these shows are selling is that an underdog within those 3% has been hiding from the public view and needs to be brought up by the mechanism of the show.
3% is still sparse too. Truly exceptional is a combination of talent and work which brings this set to a much smaller percentage.
Igor.
also for the 10,000 hours rule and Mozart see http://michaelnielsen.org/blog/?p=496
ReplyDeleteIgor.
You know I would never question the energy it takes a signal to carry meaningful information (at least in tight frames). Only questioning the device that reveals peculiar signals (sometimes): what about the buzz about Susan Boyle for instance? True stories may coexist with storytelling crafts.
ReplyDeleteI have absolutely no doubt that this example and the one given in this entry are indeed crafted ... to a point. As long as the talents are not faked...I think we can all live with the buzz. Wouldn't you agree ?
ReplyDeleteIgor.