The seven signals
A human (or, provisionally, a crawler) rates each signal 0–5. Points are
(value / 5) × weight, summed and rounded.
| Signal | Weight |
|---|---|
| Dedicated series / mission Is there a named, recurring series, festival, or curatorial line explicitly for free / improvised / experimental music? Or is that music the venue's stated reason to exist? (5 = the venue IS this music; 0 = no dedicated programming at all.) | 25 |
| Frequency of relevant shows How often does genuinely free/avant/improvised music happen here? (5 = multiple such shows every week; 3 = a regular monthly series; 1 = a handful a year; 0 = essentially never.) | 20 |
| Artist roster What share of the booked artists are recognized improvisers / experimental musicians (touring the creative-music circuit, on relevant labels)? (5 = almost all; 0 = none.) | 20 |
| Self-description Does the venue describe itself with words like experimental, improvised, adventurous, creative music, avant-garde, new music? (5 = that language is central; 0 = describes itself as a bar / tourist spot / general-purpose room.) | 12 |
| Operating model Is it artist-run / DIY collective / nonprofit built to serve the music (higher), or a commercial/tourist business that books it (lower)? (5 = artist-run or mission-driven nonprofit; 0 = commercial/tourist.) | 10 |
| Community reputation Do scene participants, press, wikis, and scene lists name this as a home for the music? (5 = widely cited as a cornerstone; 0 = never mentioned in that context.) | 8 |
| Listening-room intent Is the room programmed as an attentive listening experience (seated, quiet, music is the point) vs. background music in a bar? (5 = pure listening room; 0 = background music while people drink/talk.) | 5 |
| Total | 100 |
Tiers
| Tier | Range | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Cornerstone | 85–100 | Exists to present this music. A pilgrimage venue. |
| Committed | 65–84 | A real, regular home for the music; strong dedicated programming. |
| Supportive | 45–64 | Books it meaningfully, but as part of a broader program. |
| Occasional | 25–44 | The music appears here now and then; not a scene anchor. |
| Incidental | 0–24 | Mostly other music; free/avant is rare or accidental. |
Calibration anchors
The rubric is pinned to four venues chosen because they are obviously different from each other. If a change to the weights moves these, the change is wrong. These anchors are enforced by the test suite.
| Venue | Score | Tier |
|---|---|---|
| IBeam Brooklyn | 98 | Cornerstone |
| Dissonant Works | 94 | Cornerstone |
| Crosstown Arts | 47 | Supportive |
| Arthur's Tavern | 10 | Incidental |
Score is not confidence
Score answers how committed is this venue? Confidence (0–1) answers how sure are we? A room we cannot verify gets a low confidence, never an invented score. Entries flagged for human review say so on the page, in a box you cannot miss. We would rather show you an honest question mark than a confident wrong number.
What the rubric cannot do yet
Two of the heaviest signals — frequency of relevant shows (20 points) and artist roster (20 points) — are currently human estimates, because the Atlas does not yet ingest event calendars. That is the next thing being built: once shows are in, those two signals become measurements instead of judgements, and a room that stops programming will drift down on its own.
Current distribution
Worth knowing: the corpus was seeded by looking for good venues, so it skews high. That is a real limitation of the collection, not a claim that most music rooms are committed to this music.
| Tier | Venues |
|---|---|
| Cornerstone | 61 |
| Committed | 118 |
| Supportive | 75 |
| Occasional | 8 |
| Incidental | 1 |