Home
OMS: Music
Overview

OMS is a new way of modeling music. The OMS Model provides a systematic means of evaluating  music and understanding how it "works". It also provides new ways of thinking about music - it provides insight into questions about meaning, emotion, greatness, authenticity, and much more. At the same time, it has deep roots in artificial intelligence, academic philosophy, and actual musical practice; so the information provided by OMS is always cogent and stimulating.

OMS provides a "macro" view of music. Unlike conventional music theory  - which deals with notes, scales, chords, etc. -  OMS addresses the "big" features of music: Emotion, meaning, mathematics, time, space, mass, color, the spiritual, the religious, narrative, drama, delicious moments, passion, serenity, politics, communication, prophecy, personal change, mystery, "the ineffable", and more. It addresses these features in a systematic way that has deep roots in artificial intelligence, academic philosophy, and actual musical practice.

A. The OMS Model

What is the OMS Model?  The model views a musical work as a set of stimuli that impact a listener in a simultaneous, highly organized manner. (“OMS” stands for “Organized Multi-Stimulation”.) The most important stimuli are classified into about 90 categories.

The development of categories was the result of extensive study of how music acts on a listener. The study was guided primarily by the study of great music – classical and popular. (Over half of the categories were developed from a close study of Beethoven. It appears that Beethoven in some sense was highly aware of the ways in which music could stimulate a listener.)

OMS combines the above with a specific psychological model – the “Society of Mind” model developed by Marvin Minsky, the renowned pioneer in artificial intelligence. (According to Society of Mind, human intelligence is not a monolithic "big computer"; rather it is a loosely-coordinated assemblage of many "small" intellectual functions, many of them quite primitive. OMS holds that there are about 90 of these functions that characterize most of the experience of music. These are the 90 "categories" referred to above. To see what these categories are,  look at these profiles of two works by Mozart, or other OMS profiles on this website).

The OMS Model is further elaborated by means of various research in psychology and also in the field of analytical philosophy. 

OMS can be used to evaluate individual works of music. By applying the 90 categories, a systematic "profile" to be constructed for any piece of music. This profile is quite comprehensive, and it generally provides deep insight into how the music "works" and what it "does".

OMS also provides a comprehensive “view” of music, a view which is deeply rooted in science, philosophy, and musical practice. As a result, OMS provides “answers” to many of the “Great Questions” about music – questions about meaning, emotion, greatness, authenticity, and so on . The answers produced by the model are generally cogent and comprehensible, and succinct. Because of the deep basis of the model, the “answers” are always worth considering, even when the reader might disagree.

Besides answering questions, the model also provides novel ways to think about topics such as style, genre, compositional practice, traditional music theory, etc.  

B. Evaluating Music with OMS

OMS can be used to construct a "profile" for evaluating any musical performance. The OMS Profile allows a listener to rate a performance in about 90 categories, 0-4 in each category; a composite numeric score may be computed from the individual categories.

The profile evaluates music not in terms of “notes” or “music theory”, but in terms of  the various kinds of stimulation that it produces. Because of this, formal musical training is not essential - even an average listener can apply the profile fairly well.

An OMS Profile provides a systematic and wide-ranging evaluation of a work. It exposes strengths and limitations; it helps us to understand how the piece was "composed" and how it "works". The numeric score gives us a rough idea of how effective the work is overall. (For a quick survey of about 40 pieces of music and their numeric scores, visit the OMS Music Blog . The lowest score we have found is 3 - Nora the Cat playing the piano. The highest score we have found is 680 - Artur Schnabel's legendary performance of Beethoven Piano Sonata Op. 110. It appears that any rating higher than about 100 is very satisfying music: Beyond 100, the differences are not "good" vs "bad", but rather differences between "good", "wonderful", "great", "unforgettably great", "mind-blowing", etc.) 

OMS Profiles are especially useful in making comparisons: We can compare a song by John Lennon against a song by Brahms, and we can see in detail the differences between them, we can even get an idea of what the relative strengths are between Lennon and Brahms as composers. The comparison will often increase our appreciation of both.

An OMS Profile is similar to rating systems for wine (Robert Parker), food (the Michelin star system), or Olympic gymnastics. Systems like this are not exact; but they generally provide significant insight even when the results are subject to disagreement. Since OMS has deep roots in musical and philosophical traditions, the results of a Profile are always cogent and stimulating.

For an example of an OMS Profile of  click here - these are profiles of two works by Mozart. For more profiles, click here and go to section B.

(Advisory: The method we use for an OMS Profile is subject to variations - so there is an allowance for different taste and points of view. OMS is not an attempt at musical dictatorship.)

C. Thinking about Music with OMS

OMS is a powerful tool for thinking about music:

[1] OMS provides succinct, cogent "answers" to many of the "Great Questions of Music", questions such as:

(To see a discussion of these questions, click here )

Even when one disagrees with an OMS "answer", the OMS point of view is always stimulating and worthy of consideration, because it is based on deep musical and philosophical traditions.

[2] OMS provides tools for performers, composers, and listeners to think about issues that matter to them:
(There are a few discussions of issues like this in the  OMS Music Blog  )       

D. Some details

[1] "OMS is a model": When we say the OMS is a model of music, we mean that OMS is "an organized, systematic, slightly simplified way of thinking about music". We do not claim that OMS captures every last truth about music; but we do claim that it captures a vast amount of the reality of music. And it  presents information in a succinct, organized, highly-comprehensible manner, with a deep support system behind it. OMS behaves very much like an extremely intelligent, extremely sensitive, extremely knowledgeable, extremely fair-minded, extremely understandable professional music critic. 

As with any good model,  it is permissible to consider variations of the model and to examine what may not fit into the model. In these respects, OMS is excellent: The basic model is very very good; but it is easy to consider variations, and it is easy to discuss what might  be outside the model. 

The concept of a model is widely accepted and utilized in scientific research. Models are used in: weather prediction; medical diagnosis; structural engineering; stock market analysis; psychology; business management; cost accounting; political governance; many other areas.  It is natural to utilize models in the context of music. In fact there is already one well-accepted model of music: The "Note-centric model" (according to which music consists of notes which are organized into groups, patterns, structures, etc.). The Note-centric model is time-honored (over 400 years old) and useful, but it is also known to have many inadequacies. OMS is the first major alternative to the Note-centric model of music.

[2] Strictly speaking, OMS applies to specific performances: OMS recognizes that different performances of the same work (e.g. "The Star Spangled Banner") can have vastly different profiles (Consider performances by: U.S. Marine Band, Whitney Houston, Jimi Hendrix,  lots of others on YouTube.com). OMS always applies specifically to a performance. However, it is often convenient to speak of OMS in terms of the original composition - as long as we keep in mind the possible variations among performances.

[3] OMS is not a nasty critic: The general "view" of OMS is that almost all music can be a satisfying experience. There is nothing intrinsically bad about a tune with a low OMS rating. It's really okay if you like to sing “Eensey Weensey Spider”. We believe that OMS can increase the appreciation of almost all music - ranging from a modest children's song to a magnum opus by Beethoven.

[4] Different reactions are possible to the same stimuli: We believe that it is possible to profile the principal ways in which a piece of music produces stimulation. However, there can be wide variation in how listeners react to identical stimuli. There are many reasons for this, for instance: [i] The same stimulus will trigger different memories and associations in different listeners; [ii] A listener can easily "tune in" to certain stimuli and "tune out" of other stimuli; [iii] Different listeners are sensitive to different kinds of stimuli, and they can "experience" the same stimulus in different ways. For more information, read OMS Formal Exposition .

E. More about OMS 

The above is only a quick overview.

Read the FAQs for answers to some commonly asked questions.

Go to this page and look at some sample OMS Profiles. 

For a more comprehensive and detailed overall presentation (academic in style), go to  OMS Formal Exposition  .