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Rewritable Song Lyrics
JimCricket writes "A new kind of record company, Tailored Music Group, is selling user-customizable songs. Each song is distributed in its 'default' (generic) form, and the customer can change any (or all) of the lyrics. For a few hundred bucks, the original indie musician will re-work the song with the custom lyrics. Neat idea."
New gems like, "Pownt, I owned your ass loser. You suck, I rock"
and "I love gay sex"
Neat idea, or more proof that the music industry has jumped the shark?
Between the falling angel and the rising ape
I can't imagine anyone paying someone a few hundred dollars to do somthing most people do for fun at work or at parties.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
Only, the artist will write a completely original song based on your instructions/lyrics.
www.songstowearpantsto.com
Some of the stuff he writes is hilarious. I don't think anyone here would doubt his talent.
I could write better lyrics than anything played on MTV or the radio in the past 15-20 years.
Was it like this?
What?
Just in case there's anyone out there that thinks this will get them laid, be warned - she'll likely laugh you out of the room and reject you with extreme prejudice. If she doesn't, be warned again - she's too desperate to get involved with.
Seriously though, this has to be one of the lamest ideas I've ever heard of. I know as little about women as the next guy (and I'm married), but I do know they can smell assembly line romance from a mile away - and they hate it.
while [ 1 ]; do echo -n -e "\xe2\x95\xb$((($RANDOM&1)+1))"; done
Hey there indie rockers!
Can't wait to sell out, but you don't have the talent to get a record company interested in mutilating your songs?
Well you're in luck!!
IOU one (1) signature
First of all: if you want your hit - start write on it yourself! A song can't be better then that you express your on feelings with your own lyrics/melody/harmony. Secondly: I don't want to hear e.g. exactly the same melody/harmony with different lyrics all the time on my radio (which happens with music 'hits' anyway now and then..).
There are 2 types of people in the world - those who understand decimal and those who don't.
Seems that some outfit in Nashville had a similar idea back in the 80's
http://www.songpoemmusic.com/trubee.htm
...at least in the world of Pop music. Have you listened to any pop lately? It's mostly interchangable shite.
But hey it all started with rock - 3 chords and an infinite variety of combinations and words...sometimes the whole is more than the sum of it's parts (and sometimes it's just pure garbage).
Kinda reminds me of the "choose your own adventure" books I read in primary school.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Ultimately configurable, you can get a billion pop songs from it. The world's top hits have been made using it. It's called AlphaBet (TM) and I'll sell you it for only 19.99, send to the address below...
Naive expression of hope.... mp3
Reluctance to accept that this is wrong
I'm reminded of The Title Of The Song: http://www.neimeyer.org/schooling/Music/TitleSong
The problem with that stuff (cool as it is) it that it's easy to get lost in all the technology, and lose sight of what you're after. If you're a real geek, you've probably already got at least one musical instrument you can play - guitar, piano, zither... Whatever. Doing it yourself will be a lot more impressive than paying some dude to do it for you. I taught myself how to play a handful of instruments, and I'm pretty much the klutziest guy I know. Have a look at something like How to Play the Piano Despite Years of Lessons for a good book that demystifies making music.
Here's a quick lesson: if you've got access to a piano, you'll notice that the black keys are grouped in a repeating pattern of 3 and 2. The scale of notes (starting with the leftmost of the 3 black keys) spells out a F# major pentatonic scale (F# G# A# C# D#). It's the same scale that windchimes are tuned to - play those keys, and you won't hit a bad note. (For those curious, it's a "gapped" scale, with the notes B and F (technically E#) removed, which gets of the potential dissonance between the notes A# and B and F and F#. Play the F# with your left hand, and then noodle around on the black keys with your right hand. Change the note your left hand plays for variety (the progression F#, B, C# is particularly nice) and you've got it made. This isn't rocket science.
If music's not your gig, write a poem, or make a drawing, or whatever. Just make it honest. When my wife (girlfriend at the time) and I were broken up, she came over one day and snuck a look into my desk, and found a bunch of poems I had written about how miserable I was feeling without her. (No, I hadn't planned on her ever reading them - I'm pretty damned shy. Why do you think I'm posting as an Anonymous Coward?)
Anyway, she had already heard from me how I felt, but it wasn't until she actually read my private stuff for herself that she believed it.
It's not the slickness of the production, or the heartfelt sound of the singer's voice that's going to win her over. It's putting a chunk of your heart on the line, and doing something that's authentically you. (Unfortunately, that doesn't typically include writing her some elegant code).
Cool, finally I can rewrite the lyrics to Manfred Mann's Earth Band's 'Blinded by the Light'":
~~Blinded by the light~~Wrapped up like a douche into the runner of the night~~
This is simply the music industry's response to the vanity press. I first saw it commented on here.
For once, TFA has nothing to do with the "piracy" of music or the RIAA or any of the news that we associate with digital music lately.
It's some musicians with a few mediocre tracks providing a service to those sentimental enough for a customized song. Admit it, most people (read: women) are suckers for sweet songs with their names in it. They've realized that their product isn't going to bring in the cash, so they have taken what they've got and are reselling it as a personalized service. If they'd had a few more buzzword-loving execs, they'd be calling it Music 2.0.
khasim (12/9/06): In a blind taste test, more people preferred Coke over the Pepsi that I had previously pissed in.
This is nothing new. Since 50-60s, jamaican soundsystems aka dj's have been recording customized versions of hit tunes that are unique to them in one way or the other. Either the lyrics have been changed, tune is recorded to different background or both. Since then, this type of recorded custom music has moved to different genres and is very typical also in electronic music like drumnbass and such types which have influences from caribbean music. Dj's use to outshine other because they can play tunes that other dj's dont have.
There's a also a sort of a "sport" revolving around this phenomenon and its called soundclash. 2 different dj's or dj groups "battle" against each other with custom tunes..
yush
...didn't Stock, Aitken and Waterman do this for Pop singers 20 years ago?
A simple way of thinking about how chords are built is that they use the pitch collection, but they skip over every other note. So if you started with a C, you'd skip the D, use the E, skip the F, and use the G. So a C chord from the C Major scale consists of the pitches {C,E,G}. You could continue to add pitches ({C,E,G,B} is a C Major 7th, {C,E,G,B,D} is a C Major 9th), but past three pitches, you start adding dissonant pitches to the chords, and things get a bit complex.
In the key of C Major, you have 7 possible "basic" chords, one for each note in the scale:
- C Major {C,E,G}
- D Minor {D,F,A}
- E Minor {E,G,B}
- F Major {F,A,C}
- G Major {G,B,D}
- A Minor {A,C,E}
- B Diminished {B,D,F}
The names of the chords (Major, Minor, Diminished) refer to the quality of the chords. Play them on your piano, and you'll hear them.Music Theory 1A says that, given a melody pitch X, you can find a possible harmony by selecting a chord that contains that pitch. Each pitch can be harmonized by one of three chords - a chord with the pitch in the first note {X,?,?}, in the second note of the chord {?,X,?) or the third note of the chord {?,?,X}:
Looking at the list, you can see that you've got lots of options for harmonizing the melody. (Constraints like harmonic movement (i.e. what chord changes sound less random than others) come into play, but I'll ignore those for the movement and move on...
All right, we're almost there. There are lots of options, but notice that if we chose to only use the three major chords (C Major, F Major, G Major), we'd be able to harmonize things just fine, with no gaps in coverage:
- C: C Major {C,E,G}, and F Major {F,A,C}
- D: G Major {G,B,D}
- E: C Major {C,E,G}
- F: F Major {F,A,C}
- G: G Major {G,B,D}, and C Major {C,E,G}
- A: F Major {F,A,C}
- B: G Major {G,B,D}
Those minor chords can be replaced with their relative majors - the relative major of A Minor {A,C,E} is C Major {C,E,G}. Note that they share two pitches in common, so your typical listener isn't going to hear much difference.The point of all this is that "three chords" isn't nearly as limiting as people make it out to be. It's sufficient to get the job done (harmonically speaking) for most songs. (Jazz and other styles that depend on sophisticated harmonic dissonances notwithstanding).
Back in the 80's, so many people were starting bands and had their own 4-track cassette that record companies started releasing singles in the single sided 4 track cassette format. You could just play it as was or you could remix it to your hearts content.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
I wish tailors would stick to adjusting clothes. I've put a few pounds on recently.
The scale of notes (starting with the leftmost of the 3 black keys) spells out a F# major pentatonic scale (F# G# A# C# D#). It's the same scale that windchimes are tuned to - play those keys, and you won't hit a bad note.
:-)
... which is nice. :-)
That worked nicely -- thanks!
Got any more little gems like that? I'd love to try them out.
Sounds like you understand music
Those of you who listen to African, and particularly Congolese music are familiar with that scheme. Songs are peppered with praise for individuals who paid for it. Actually it is so big that some artists pre-finance their albums production that way ! It is like embedding advertising in the songs. In a country where piracy makes album sales almost irrelevant, live performance and embedded advertising are important ways to make money.
Exactly. It's one manifestation of the patronage economic model.
Look at the extended editions of lord of the rings movies - people paid to get their names in the credits. Personally, not my thing, but considering just how long those credit rolls go for, obviously A LOT of people thought it was valuable to them.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
but only for unsigned singers whose popularity is through their websites. That way if they have a few hundred dedicated fans maybe 10 of them will pay to get a love song changed to have their name in it for example and that'd earn the musician a few thousand $ as long as their fanbase is big enough.
So basically, if Slashdot gets its wet dream of a new kind of recording industry business model based around P2P, this is what they'll have to look forward to in the future: adverts in music, as it's the only real way to make money.
Lovely.
By summer it was all gone...now shesmovedon. --
I'm amazed at all the negative comments on this. The idea is a clever one, it's directly innovative, and for the right occasion, a very good product.
Think about weddings, anniversaries and the like. What a cool gift for that special someone?
This is another step down the road to the infinitely personalized marketplace, which is a BIG trend with vast potential impact. In this particular case, it doesn't scale particularly well, but just like customized Nikes, this is a way for you as a "consumer" to be more involved, more creative, and more attached to something you normally get cranked out *at* you.
I give this one two thumbs up.
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- Woody Boyd
You never expect irony, do you?
Want to be a professional wrestler? Visit www.iyfwrestling.com
@iyfwrestling
mind you that you should take care to choose the right artist to do this.
molmod.com - computing tips from a molecular modeling
Weird Al.
Who will now find a way to copywright a song's framework thus making all derivitives under copyright. Then, they will look for a way to retro-actively go after Janet Jackson for putting her own lyrics to the music of "Ventura Highway".
Soon to be followed by M.C. Hammer, Vanilla Ice, et. al....and especially Wierd Al...
A goal is a dream with a deadline
New gems like, "Pownt, I owned your ass loser. You suck, I rock"
It's not all going to be heavy metal
"I love gay sex"
Or country music, ya know.
And So....haveing thusly offended a significant portion of the Slashdot demographic...exit our hero through the front door...STAGE LEFT
A goal is a dream with a deadline
I bought my first CD with slightly customized lyrics about 2 years ago.
It was a 'veggie tales' song CD for my kid. With her name inserted into the songs.
The mall kiosk I bought it at had hundreds of versions of the CD on a PC, and they burned the 'custom' one while we waited. My kid loved it.
I wonder if something like this is used by the recording industry to pump out all those "wonderful" songs we hear every day?
Internet: Serious Business
The most famous example is Ramsey Kearney's "Blind Man's Penis (Peace And Love)" definitely worth hearing if you never have.
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_poem:
http://www.lulu.com/content/919150
Anyone else notice how they quite transparently used their own tech for generating the testimonial quotes?
sudo ergo sum
Now, I can finally have *real* songs with lyrics such as "Hold me closer, Tony Danza...", "Wrapped up like a douche..." and all the other misheard lyrics that are much better than the originals. Maybe I could have them actually transcribe Pearl Jam's song lyrics as mumbles, the way they are sung!
Doesn't Nickelback already do this?
Oh what a brave new world it will be when they get computers to do this!
It's too late! Nickelback has already done this!
I will endure to the end.
What is really needed is for labels to release in a multi track audio CODEC that can be totally remixed in any way. This would be great for practicing songs. You could take out the lead guitar and play that or the lyric track could be changed from explicit to radio. The lyric track could be taken out for karaoke.
I would pay more for this than a standard CD.
Frank Zappa produced an album done by Wild Man Fisher. He was originally a street performer and would write a unique sing for anyone for a dollar. Several instances of him doing just that were on the album, along with some studio work with Zappa backing him up. Superbly weird. Your own song for a buck (with a Zappa stamp of approval) is better than a morphed song no matter how much.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
One more nail in the coffin of creativity. However I believe that this system was already created in a more free (as in beer) form... I think they called it the blues. Everyone uses the same three chords and just comes up with their own lyrics.
-makoffee
FURRY RAYYYYYN
Fags in fursuits make me feel so ill
FURRY RAYYYYYN
Bukakke means a steep dry cleanin' bill
FURRY RAYYYYYN
Hide your children, hide your pets
FURRY RAYYYYYN
They'll be yiffin' before the sun sets
This isn't quite the innovation some people seem to think of it as. This has been done a few times in the past (I can't for the life of me remember any of the names or find links (sorry)) and hasn't really ever done well. Expect to see some spam from time to time in your favorite music related forums (if you have any of those) and then not hear from them again.
The concept is ancient.. this has probably been going on thousands of years. When computers can blurt out out perfect-enough simulated singing the whole process is easily automated. The technology exists, but it's not convincing enough just yet (I'd say it's comparable to the authencity of a computer created fashion model). One of the strongest moments for me in 1984 was when the innocent old lady whose house the main character resided in sung to the tune of an algorithmically created pop-song, thus living fully in the world of multi-layered illusions. The feelings mechanically generated and carefully calculated were enough to make her happy and forget about the world around her, and not to question its motives..
True, it's about the chicks too...
This is just an attempt to confuse and strangle consumers with another format acronym: MP3-RW
I've actually seen something similar to this.
They were selling Veggietales CDs at a local mall. And the first track was happy birthday.
If you could find your child's name on the list, then they could burn you a CD with the veggies singing happy birthday to your kid. Kinda neat.
Yes, and while I think that the patronage model is where we're headed for music in the digital era, I think it highlights one of the downsides to patronage.
When artistic concerns are overshadowed by the need to please one's patron, art suffers.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Props given for an obscure reference, however reversal of stance for lack of credit for group that wrote the song.
Offering of better reference in form of a wiki article and song lyrics.
Self-righteous closing
--Witty, yet non-relevant tagline
This is not entirely different from a service I offer at www.thetunetailor.com ... where I provide COMPLETELY custom songs for my clients.
Tell that to Mozart. And Handel. And Beethoven. And Wagner. And...
Much of the fantastic music that makes up our collective cultural heritage came from patronage. In fact, this continues today. Music which is not written on order for a customer is by far the minority of all music.
Pirate Party UK
If you want to play sheet music on the piano, the simplest way to do is pretend you're a guitarist and just look at the guitar chords written on the sheet music. No need to read the notes - play the root of the chord in your left hand, and the chord in your right hand. This method is called "Chord Piano", and Google is your friend here.
For an "bare minimum" level of understanding, all you need to know is if the chord is a Major or a Minor. Minor chords are written with an "m" or "min", like "Dm", "Dmin", "Dmin7" and so on. If it's not a Minor chord, it's probably a Major chord. If there are other things attached to the chord, like "G7", "Amin7", "Cmaj7", "Dm11", "Bbsus4" or "D#add2", just ignore those. They tell you what sort of additional notes or additions you're supposed to make to the chord. You can worry about them later.
A major chord is so named because the notes are taken from a major scale, and a minor chord has notes from a minor scale. In general, a chord takes the 1st, 3rd and 5th notes from a scale, but it can add additional decorative notes. For example, a C Major scale has the notes {C, D, E, F, G, A, B} in it, so a C Major chord would have the notes {C, E, G} in it, since they are the 1st, 3rd and 5th notes of the scale. The D Minor scale has the notes {D, E, F, G, A, Bb, C} in it, so a D Minor chord has the notes {D,F,A} in it.
To make a Major chord, put the thumb of your right hand on the key the chord starts with. So for a "Bb" chord, you put your thumb on a "Bb" note. That's the "root" or the "1" note. To get the 3rd note of the scale, count up from there 4 notes - including the black keys - "B", "C", "C#", "D". "D" is the next note of the chord. To get the 5th note of the scale, count up 3 more notes - including the black keys - "D#", "E", "F". "F" is the next note of the chord. So a Bb Major chord has the notes {Bb,D,F} in it. Write those notes above the chord, to remind you what to play.
The difference between a Major chord and a Minor chord is that the 3rd of the scale is 1 key (half step) lower. So instead of the pattern being (root+4+3), it's (root+3+4). So a "Bbm" chord has the pitches {Bb,Db,F} in it instead of {Bb,D,F}.
As to the rest of the "chord code", it isn't that tricky to crack, but it does take some work. You can find online programs here and here that will construct chords for you and show you the fingering. Again, I'd advise having a look at the books I mentioned.
To play the chords on the piano, play the root of the chord with you left hand, and the chord in your right hand. So for a "G" (major) chord {G,B,D}, you'd play a "G" in your left hand, and the notes "G", "B" and "D" in your right hand.
You'll notice that your hand jumps around a bit when you move from one chord to the next. I rearrange the notes so that they don't go below the "F" below middle C (middle C = the "C" note in the middle of the keyboard) and above the "E" above middle C. This keeps the chords in a nice register (about where a guitar would play), and my hand doesn't have to move very much. For example, instead of voicing the "C" chord as {C,E,G}, I play it as {G,C,E}. Again, work all this out ahead of time on paper.
Once you've got that going, you'll probably want to spice things up a bit. I usually play a pattern with my right hand, where I alternate between playing whatever note happens to be under my thumb (for the "G" chord, it's a "C") and the rest of the notes under my other
Not to mention music is a luxury hobby. The wealthier society is, the more leisure time can be chosen rather than work time. Just as people might like to pre-game relax by listening to some music others might like to pre-game relax by making some music. There will always be the pop incentive of fame and girls to motivate plenty of people to produce music. It's pbs nature mating documentary behavior. When studio time drops from $50k an hour to $1 an hour a lot more people can produce competitive music.
Ad-laced music will have to compete with non-ad-laced music. Do you see people typing advertisements after every sentence on blog posts ("impress her with your 5.0 mod rate")? If they did they would be ignored, filtered out. Same will hold for music. And others can constantly remix originals and remix remixes with different lyrics, different instruments, different different ad infinitum. That will be part of the ginormous creative artistic explosion brought about by the de facto if not yet "legal" abolition of copyright.
"From DNA to P2P, we are all Copycats now. Go Go Copycat Power! Copycat Powers activate! Form of, a Copycat." --monxrtr
...my next hit single, "I Just Want To [verb] You [adverb]".
...than those records they used to sell with "birthday" songs on them. Made them for all the popular names. Crap then... crap now. Nuff said.
Music - www.richardmac.com
Acceptance of reversal of stance citing location of terminal as plausible cause for lack of appropriate research.
Mostly on-topic fanboi-ing of previously ascertained musical group.
Subtle meta-reference to non-sequiterish subject.
-- Overused lyric from mainstream ex-alternative band used with a completely inappropriate misunderstanding of subject
The parent was referring to reggae dubplates or "specials". At dubplates.com you can order custom dubplates from a number of big name reggae artists online. These are not DJ remixes, and in the world of Dancehall Reggae soundclash, playing a soundsystem that plays homemade remix or a "splice" is considered to be cheater.
Likewise, when artistic concerns are overshadowed by the need to get something in yer belly, art disappears.
I'd rather have suffering art, than no art...
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
There is a company here that sells childrens records with the lyrics customized for the name of your child. Naturally they have a database of songs with common names. My daughters name is unusual so they needed a week to fill the order. But she loves it (5 years old), there is something about having your name said repeatedly on the recording that really gets her.