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"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."
Bash is open source... oh.
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?
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Here is a good article by Alexander Prodoukine in which it's explained how MuseScore improved while typesetting the Goldberg Variations: http://libregraphicsworld.org/blog/entry/open-goldberg-variations-mission-accomplished
It seems a little backwards, though. Lilypond may be hard to use, but it's very powerful and produces gorgeous scores - and all the variations are on Mutopia already.
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
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.
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.
Not a musician but married to a composer and pianist.
Old scores are not precise in the way that modern ones are. A lot depends on little things that were never written down, particularly if the composer performed the work himself; ornaments (trills and the like) would be put in at the performer's discretion, and in the 18th century at any rate, performers were expected to supply a good deal of ornamentation themselves. There is a definite trend over the years of specifying more and more exactly how the composer wants the music to be played.
Another aspect with something like the Goldbergs is that many players will now play it on the piano, for which Bach wrote nothing. The mechanics of the harpsichord or clavichord are very different, so that the modern score editor has the option, if not the obligation, to insert dynamics or pedalling that are only appropriate to the modern instrument.
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.
FLAC is lossless, so go ahead and encode it yourself. You've got one format of quality, and one format that plays on even the dumbest of devices - makes sense to me.
xkcd is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.
Ah... the Goldberg Variations. There is something in it of divinity which the ear cannot distinguish...
Music notation is not really precise anyway. Interpretation is required for tempo indications, dynamic marks, phrasing, various inflection marks (e.g., exactly how long is "staccato"?), ornamentation and all sorts of other stuff.
Bach was more precise than his contemporaries in writing ornaments that he required - the aria of the Goldberg Variations is full of ornamentation - and he lamented the common practice of performers chucking in ornaments ad libitum. Even so, it's not always easy to see exactly what ornament is written (I have seen the E minor arpegiando in the first section of the aria notated as both descending and ascending in different editions because the handwritten copy is note easy to read). But he frequently didn't give any indication of tempo (and often when he did, the meaning has changed over time, e.g. a Baroque "presto" was different from a romantic one, and in any case Italian tempo indications are often also not just about tempo but also about affect. He certainly didn't give metronome markings, because the metronome was not invented until later.
Also, there is a lot assumed in music notation that is cultural.
Finally, the Goldberg Variations was written for harpsichord or clavichord, not for the piano. Both the harpsichord and clavichord afford the player less fine control over dynamics than the piano but the harpsichord allows a greater range of timbre because they often have various stops. So playing this music on the piano should rightly be considered as a transcription (which is not to criticise it in any way).