Slashdot Mirror
"Open Source Bach" Project Completed; Score and Recording Now Online
rDouglass writes "MuseScore, the open source music notation editor, and pianist Kimiko Ishizaka have released a new recording and digital edition of Bach's Goldberg Variations. The works are released under the Creative Commons Zero license to promote the broadest possible free use of the works. The score underwent two rounds of public peer review, drawing on processes normally applied to open source software. Furthermore, the demands of Bach's notational style drove significant advancements in the MuseScore open source project. The recording was made on a Bösendorfer 290 Imperial piano in the Teldex Studio of Berlin. Anne-Marie Sylvestre, a Canadian record producer, was inspired by the project and volunteered her time to edit and produce the recording. The project was funded by a successful Kickstarter campaign that was featured on Slashdot in March 2011."
The score underwent two rounds of public peer review, drawing on processes normally applied to open source software.
Other than high profile projects. 99.99% of open source projects have no such thing.
Bash is open source... oh.
Hopefully these improvements to MuseScore will make it easier to use, because so far I have not been able to get much done with it just out of the difficulty of using it. The interface is really unintuitive. I don't think I've ever found a music scoring program that is easy to use.
"Stratigraphically the origin of agriculture and thermonuclear destruction will appear essentially simultaneous" -- Lee
The MP3 files, along with 45 others or so - http://download.opengoldbergvariations.org/open_goldberg_variations_mp3_24_44.zip?torrent
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Help restore /. to its former nerd news glory, tag stories like this with realslash to tell the editors that we want our favorite site back.
If you don't think that /. has anything resembling a glorious past, consider this an effort to improve things for the future.
Thank you for making /. a better place for nerds everywhere!
TFA is a bit light. I'm wondering how you review a score? Was it "muse score software didn't display this note properly", or "the music would sound better if you went up instead of down here, or repeated a theme differently"?
Open source music, now there's an idea. Could be like composing by committee...
Paul "Say no to feeping creaturism"
What's the betting that YouTube immediately starts tagging this work as belonging to a big record label when people use this as background music to their videos?
When the inevitable story breaks that WMG (Warner Music Group) have taken down some videos that use this work, feel free to link back to this post.
Videos reinstated on a case-by-case basis (meaning that 95% stay down). I hope I'm wrong.
There is no TPB license, or at least I can't find one. Surprised they don't have one.
Licenses don't have to suck.. They can actually be good in rare occasions. I wrote this post and I license you to do anything you want with it, republish it, remix it, put it into a new media format, redistribute it, just so long as you make at least a minimally pitiful attempt at avoiding plagiarism and libel by quoting and/or citing properly as appropriate to your use of my post. Also I grant you no guarantee of correctness or right of return or pretty much any obligation on to me.
Now you can perfectly legally include this post in an advertising campaign, or sell tee shirts with it written on it, or quote it in a book, or include it in a movie, and no one can claim they wrote it instead of me and force you to take it down or just sue you. Also I disclaim all obligation toward me, so if you were stupid enough to think I'm providing real legal advice that is your own fault.
There recently were people trying to sell Goldberg Variations audio CDs and charge for rights to use as a movie soundtrack, etc. I suspect that will end pretty soon.
Real licenses are much better written that mine.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
What is the point of all this open source licensing crap? If you're fine with people using your stuff without compensation (or stealing if you prefer), why don't you just use the TPB License (tm) and be done wuith it?
One is legal the other is not. And the legal option has payed for the artist's performance.
The MPAA, RIAA and other baron robber entertainment industries will never see another cent from me.
So I'm glad for these legal projects.
MODDER UP!
...for Zenph.
Set your phasers on "funky"!
This stuff isn't licensed. Creative Commons licenses assert copyright while providing general permission to copy and adapt the copyrighted materials under certain circumstances. This is released under a CC0 waiver, which is a legal means to try to negate copyright to the maximum extent possible in a world where in many countries it's not possible to disclaim copyright easily.
There is no TPB license, or at least I can't find one.
Maybe they thought it would be redundant with the WTFPL.
...and they can still charge for a CD of Goldberg Variations and charge for it's use in a movie soundtrack ... Just not this one
There is also copyright on a performance, the score might be opensource and free to use but any particular performance is still copyright until someone declares otherwise ...
Puteulanus fenestra mortis
Why don't they use ogg vorbis instead? We don't have software patent here so MP3 is as free as Ogg Vorbis, but if they decided to be as free as possible (CC licensed) then the latter would be better.
Does anybody have any review/comment on the quality of performance and recording? I know that it cost me nothing (as I didn't know about the Kickstarter project) but I hope for the future of this kind of project that it's topnotch. I'm enthused about the idea of funding a recording session in advance if the result is released under a nonrestrictive license like CC0 and there's a reasonable expectation of good outcome.
MuseScore and MusicXML (or mXML) are fantastic projects and wonderfully useful products. I use both all the time and donate cash on a regular basis. I've used them for professional, high-end projects and for little personal projects that will never go beyond my four walls. mXML is yet another open source project that was just so smart, so good that all the the big proprietary music editor developers had to incorporate it into their own products, because none of them had been able to come up with a flexible, portable, rich music language or format of their own.
If anyone who has contributed to either of these is around here, you need to stand up and get a little round of applause.
I learned about mXML and MuseScore when I was searching online for lead sheets to some jazz standards to learn on my chromatic harmonica, and stumbled upon wikifonia (also a very worthy project). It is a shame that wikifonia is having such trouble staying up lately. I'm sure they're getting the full scorched-earth treatment from music publishers, who have so badly failed at making any good use of new technologies.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Even if this post is kind of inflamatory, I think it's a question many people wonder about. If I had mod points I'd mod it up. It's asking, what is the point of open source licenses? Why not just say, "Do what ever you like"? It's a valid question.
vim answered below, but I would like to add one or two points. Licenses are necessary because copyright does not allow anyone to make a copy without permission form the copyright holder. In some countries, copyright infringement can actually be a crime in some situations. Even if the original copyright holder doesn't care if you make a copy, the state can still charge you with a crime.
For this reason, especially for something indented to be distributed around the world, you need to have a license indicating what someone is allowed to do. Copyright reserves certain rights to the copyright holder. You can relax these rights, add conditions, etc, etc. The point of an "open source" (as a generic term, not OSI term) is to give the user more rights than they would normally have with copyright. Depending on the country, you may be able to relax all the rights, but in some countries you may not.
In the case of this musical piece, it is being distributed under a Creative Commons 0 license. This license relaxes all the rights possible given the country that you are in. It is roughly equivalent to saying "Do what you want", except that some countries don't allow to you say that. CC0 is intended to be the most permissive license allowed by law.
One common question is why there is more than one license. Why doesn't everyone use CC0, for instance? The reason is that some people would like to continue to reserve some rights for themselves. This can be done to encourage a specific set of behaviors (e.g., GPL), to make sure credit is given to the original author (e.g., BSD), to ensure that it isn't used for commercial purposes (e.g., CCNC), etc. For whatever reason, whether everyone agrees that it is a good idea or not, some people would like to reserve different rights. But since licenses are hard to write well (you usually need a lawyer to help you), most people settle on a few core licenses that achieve specific goals.
Well, I uploaded a copy of the first mp3 out of curiosity, and ..... surprise!
Kimiko Ishizaka Bach Open Goldberg Variations 01 - Aria
Your video may include the following copyrighted content:
"Ragna Schirmer-Goldberg Variations, BWV 988: Aria", sound recording administered by:
Kontor New Media
"Audun Kayser-Aria Da Capo E Fine", sound recording administered by:
[Merlin] Phonofile
"Remi Masunaga-Goldberg Variations, BWV 988: Aria", sound recording administered by:
IDOL (Independent Distribution On Line)
What does this mean?
Your video is still available worldwide. In some cases ads may appear next to your video. Please note that the video's status can change, if the policies chosen by the content owners change. Learn more about copyright on YouTube.
This claim does not affect your account status.
Try it yourself and see.
This one's CC0 (i.e. placed in the public domain) - I can burn it to CD and charge for it if I like!
Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
This is on a side note. I've been sort of obsessed by the Goldberg variations for years, and of all performers I've heard, I really do recommend Tatiana Nikolayeva (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tatiana_Nikolayeva). To my ears, she's just outstanding compared to Glenn Gould and the others, when it comes to Goldberg. The Goldberg variations were meant to be played at night, easing the long nights of the insomniac Count Kaiserling, for whom Goldberg worked. I've always thought that the music was meant to be played lightly and sensitively, to be pleasant in the forementioned setting. If you listen to the aria when Tatiana plays it, you will hear an astonishingly soft touch where appropriate, and a really delicate flow. I always thought that this was a really good interpretation of the Goldberg variations. (Glenn Gould - in all his fantastic technical glory - renders it somewhat more forced and hard.)
Just the thing for this Tuesday morning. Thanks to MuseScore and Kimiko!
Backward%20compatibility%20is%20over-rated
Myriad's Harmony Assistant is the obvious inspiration for MuseScore. At $85 it is a bargain. For $25 more it will sing!
I'm checking out the new MuseScore.... Still a toy. No depth. Seriously, Harmony Assistant is a mature product that's been polished.
Oh gawd - MuseScore's palettes are an unfunny joke - they compete with each other for space (I hate that). It needs JACK for MIDI on Windows? It won't drive my DAWs? Those are the time signatures and keys, that's it? Ouch. If I continue I'm going to start cussing and it will sound like I'm berating volunteers. It's an awfully high bar that Harmony Assistant sets, and I do not think it possible for MuseScore to "catch up."
If you're willing to pay, Myriad has the real deal for a steal! You can try it for free,
http://myriad-online.com
(I am not a paid spox for them, I just loooove their products)
Is it a good performance? If not, who cares how it was funded, etc.
Amazing that something like this can come out of a city where most buildings are only held together by the graffiti on their walls, the trains aren't held together at all, and apparently a rather large part of the population consists of ultra-leftists (homeless punks) who get away with everything and are 100% oblivious to the self-irony they project in their actions.
There's also the new airport that was supposed to open (and immediately and permanently replace Berlin's two older airports) in a couple days, but won't for another year or so. When'd they figure out they wouldn't make it? An unprecedented four weeks before it was supposed to open (i.e. around three weeks ago).
PS
Most airlines' websites still say they're using the new airport from June 3.
You can contest it too. Which means the ads displayed would pay you instead of the record companies.
The MPAA, RIAA and other baron robber entertainment industries will never see another cent from me.
Not if you're downloading stuff from The Pirate Bay, no.
You go stick it to The Man baby.
I haven't listened to them all yet, but the Ishizaka's recordings sound really good. I think the Goldberg Variations can tolerate a range of styles.
I few years back I wanted to know what the Goldberg Variations might sound like "uninterpreted", at least as far as that is practically possible. I downloaded Dave Grossman's midi files and the Blanchet 1720 Harpsichord soundfont. I played a little with the registers and cleaned up the midi files a touch. Then I recorded them with timidity using a dash of reverb and used lame to turn out some mp3s (so all done with open source tools on linux).
Download: The Goldberg Variations realized on the Blanchet 1720
I'm biased, but I *really* like them, far better than any of my other recordings. Case in point, compare the 13th variation with Ishizaka's. While I enjoy different interpretations (I like her version, too), I also think the uninterpreted version keeps any one melody from being emphasized too much, thus preserving a balanced polyphony a little more.
They are also CC0 license, so copy them or sell them, or whatever. If you like them, drop me an email (in the license).
Nice, except of course for the one-at-a-time downloads from dropbox. Thank you.
Oh, I'm sorry sir, I thought you were referring to me, Mr. Wensleydale.
now a zip file at the bottom of the directory, can also be downloaded as a zip file here
Kewl. By the way, nice username!
Oh, I'm sorry sir, I thought you were referring to me, Mr. Wensleydale.
Glenn Gould's versions are often the first that people hear. Afterwards, everyone else plays it "wrong".
FWIW, I like both the 1955 and 1982 versions.
I have to admit I jumped the gun with my post. I thought the article was referring software that could score on the fly if you feed it a performance. Never actually heard one, but I find the Zenph "re-performance" concept intriguing.
Set your phasers on "funky"!
From the Open Goldberg Variations blog: "iPad owners can now enjoy the Open Goldberg Variations, played by Kimiko Ishizaka, while following the score on their iPad. MuseScore has released a free iPad app that is dedicated to the music, the score, and the history of the Open Goldberg Variations project. Have fun!" Link: http://bit.ly/LqR6SQ