Berklee Blogs introduces Gabrielle Thornley, a Professional Music major and spring intern, as she begins her internship with The Echo Nest, a music intelligence company that provides the largest repository of music data in the world for app developers. In today’s blog, Gabrielle illustrates Echo Nest’s work hard, play hard mentality…

The Annual Echo Nest Mustachio Bashio turned out to be a huge success and the best celebration yet, according to employees. After lunch was delivered that Friday afternoon, the music began blasting throughout the office, signaling the end of the work day, despite the fact that it was only one o’clock.

As soon as “Eye Of The Tiger” started playing, the office door of the company’s founder flew open, spilling clouds of fog. He emerged from the room pushing the beloved trophy, that was taller than me. The office broke out into a burst of cheers and clapping. We spent the next hour watching the hilarious skits performed by the men of the office and I had the honor of being chosen to be the official announcer. Afterwards, the ladies were forced to pick only three winners, earning the men trophies and a year’s worth of bragging rights. The choice was difficult, but a big congratulations to the winners!

Read More

Berklee Blogs introduces Gabrielle Thornley, a Professional Music major and spring intern, as she begins her internship with The Echo Nest, a music intelligence company that provides the largest repository of music data in the world for app developers. In today’s blog, Gabrielle tells us her thoughts on possibly extending her internship experience…

As my time at the Echo Nest winds down, I realize just how much I’m going to miss this experience in it’s entirety. I’m strongly considering continuing my internship with the Echo Nest next Fall in order to increase my chances of a job offer in the future. Over a bottle of wine, I talked to my supervisor, Michelle, about her start in the company. It’s reassuring to know that at one point, she was also a QA/Marketing Intern, just like myself.

This week, the Echo Nest is working with a large computer software technology corporation. Although the interns have not been told the reason the company needs our data, we have definitely been working hard to make sure it is as accurate as possible, meaning my week has consisted of spreadsheet, after spreadsheet, after more spreadsheets. Hopefully we’ll be finding out soon what role we play in the development of this deal and how the Echo Nest will benefit!

Read More

Berklee Blogs introduces Gabrielle Thornley, a Professional Music major and spring intern, as she begins her internship with The Echo Nest, a music intelligence company that provides the largest repository of music data in the world for app developers. In today’s blog, Gabrielle tells us about the expansion of The Echo Nest to the West Coast and some fun projects she’s been working on…

This has been a fun-filled couple of weeks for us at the Echo Nest. Mustache March has been thrown into full effect around the office, meaning a lot of unshaven faces walking around. The handful of girls at work will be the judges of this “Mustachio Contest,” so I must admit that I am a little excited for that.

On a different note, I’ve been working on a slew of fun projects recently. We’ve continued on with the Playlist Project, which I must admit, has been my favorite activity so far. I added a few new R&B tunes to my “Getting Lucky” playlist, while generating another list based solely on the act of stretching before a workout. Interpreting that as more of a calming vibe, I kept the playlist acoustic, with a consistent folky sound throughout. Along with all the playlisting, I was asked to research and purchase the top songs trending in about 15 different countries right now. It was really awesome to see what people around the world are listening to, compared to the United States. Despite the many similarities, the translations, however, were not too much fun.

Read More

Berklee Blogs introduces Gabrielle Thornley, a Professional Music major and spring intern, as she begins her internship with The Echo Nest, a music intelligence company that provides the largest repository of music data in the world for app developers. In today’s blog, Gabrielle tells us some of the cool things The Echo Nest is involved in and how they help interns get emotionally invested in the work they do.

So far, the Echo Nest has been all I could have asked for. I’ve met so many new people and have already made some great connections. Some of the work has been a bit monotonous, but it is a data company, after all. Most of my days consist of me sorting through genre lists with hundreds of artists and correcting any errors that the company may have in their data. I do get to enjoy endless supplies of tea and music while I do it, which makes it pretty bearable :).

Over the past couple of weeks, The Echo Nest has made it a point to remind the interns that our tasks are not busy work, but that we are actually helping the company in many different aspects. We’ve had a few meetings with associates from different departments within the Echo Nest, which have really helped to clarify the purpose behind what we do and how our tasks affect the company as a whole. Personally, I’ve learned so many cool things about this company that makes me really proud to say that I am a part of it. I never realized how many clients actually use the Echo Nest. They work with probably every major company worldwide, such as iHeartRadio and MTV to name a couple.  

Read More

Berklee Blogs introduces Gabrielle Thornley, a Professional Music major and spring intern, as she begins her internship with The Echo Nest, a music intelligence company that provides the largest repository of music data in the world for app developers. In today’s blog, Gabrielle tells us about the positive vibe she found at her internship while exploring her career options.

I know what people think when I tell them that I am currently a junior at Berklee. The typical responses range from, “So…what do you wanna do?” or “What’s your back up plan?” Music has always been my passion and I recently decided that music will be my back up plan as well. I can envision myself being on that big stage, just me and my guitar, with the audience singing along to my music. But then I thought, “What if that doesn’t happen?” And for that reason, I decided to build my resume and start interning. I was ecstatic when I landed my internship at the Echo Nest, a music data company based out of Somerville. I had no experience doing QA or marketing but was kind of excited to finally explore another aspect of the music industry, besides performing.

When I arrived for my first day, I walked in, with my high heels, to an office full of jeans and t-shirts. An inflatable palm tree stood in one corner, a disco ball hung from another corner, and the girl with green hair lounging closest to me glanced over and said hello. She offered me tea while I waited for Michelle, who was going to be my internship advisor. Michelle gave me the office tour and introduced me to the company’s co- founder, who complimented my YouTube cover video that he stumbled upon while researching the new Spring interns.

Read More