Here we are, once again heralding the beginnings of our weekends and rejoicing in the time for ourselves to do with as we please.

As my weekend begins, I’ll be adding the finishing touches to my sister’s wedding (as I am supposed to be the officiate), and attempt memorizations so I don’t look like a bumbling fool. And as that time passes, I’ll be enjoying a nice vacation. That’s right, while you DIY-warriors are out there tackling the lawn or last-minute projects, I will most certainly be doing more enjoyable things in San Francisco and Las Vegas.

My itinerary includes a tour of Alcatraz, the California Academy of Sciences, and a Giants game (to name a few), and in Vegas I’ll be watching some Cirque du Soleil, Lance Burton, and generally being lazy in the Bellagio.

Yes, this post was meant to make you all jealous.

I was surfing the internet not long ago when I thought to myself:

Why is it that there is no such thing as a music mapping software, platform, or website that could list all the artists/songs one likes together into a network diagram of how they relate to each other… Like a family tree of your music library?

Further, why couldn’t this Music Tree be a way to discover more music; like Pandora?

Yeah! Good question, no?

So I went searching like I usually do, and I ended up searching for a very long time (as I usually do). I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into at the time, but the trip took me to all sorts of places. From Musical DNA Software where they are trying to visually represent a literal DNA structure of music compositions based on scalar relativity (excellent article can be found here), to a very odd and almost disturbing film by TokyoPlastic . I’ll spare you all the things I discovered and give you the three best shots I found.

1. MusicBox is a development visualization and mapping software that analyzes an entire music library using a principal components analysis for specific traits and then displays each song in a format specifically customizable by you. The project is being made as a Masters thesis by a student of MIT named Anita Lillie.

HD version recommended

Fast Tube by Casper

2. Music-Map.com is an independent service of Flork (a social networking site) that displays a virtual network of similar artists. Input a specific artist you like, and it will generate a network display (based on relative sound) of any other artists that may be similar in taste. The closer they are, you may figure, the closer in sound.

3. MusicMap by Dimvision, is another virtual network, but based on artist or album. Further, it boasts a more robust visualization than its Flork counterpart, as well as allowing the user to explore a network diagram of albums enabling you to discover similar artists in a strickingly familiar way (I direct you to the Visual Thesaurus).

I know I’m by myself on this one… And I’ll probably scare you all with the terms I’m about to use… but I had to just say that I think this is quite possibly one of the hottest little movies I’ve seen.

Why? Because of the filming. The angles, the lighting, the visuals… I could probably think of a thousand reasons why this particular piece is so salivating. And what makes it so much sweeter is that it’s a freaking Delta Airlines FLIGHT SAFETY video.