Rob and I have been toying around with an idea on and off for the past year (read: we’ve written a few emails). The idea, which would be called the Open Music Project, if the name wasn’t already taken, is basically open source music.
The raw, isolated tracks of a recording can be compared to the un-compiled source code of software. The mixed-down and mastered final track that you’d actually get on a CD is analogous to the complied binary code you run on your computer.
In the same way that compiled code can’t really be edited or modified, it is difficult to work with mixed down finished music. It is difficult/impossible to isolate the individual tracks and do anything useful with them (not really an issue, since most music is copyrighted anyway).
Our idea is to have willing musicians and engineers producing music that is open and available for others to use, modify, and redistribute. The music would available in its raw individual tracks, so any or all of it could be used by other.
I’ve been amazed at how the open source software initiative has mammoth corporations, independent developers, non-profit organizations, and small businesses all working to their mutual advantage. It’s not a perfect system. Open source software, since it is developed by developers, usually for their own benefit, is often weaker in the consumer application area and stronger in development software. I’m not sure how these tendencies would manifest themselves in terms of music and musicians (what do you get when you have a bunch of musicians producing music for themselves rather than for an audience – good music, perhaps?).
This idea hasn’t been in the over for very long. One of the big issues would be file formats. There are good and widely supported formats for straight stereo audio (MP3, Ogg Vorbis, Windows Media, etc.). However, it would be idea to have some good standard multi-track formats that were widely supported (perhaps there are? ProTools, Cakewalk, Cool Edit Pro, etc.). Worse case scenario, individual tracks could be distributed in isolated files (MP3, for example) and be re-assembled in a particular musician’s multi-track software of choice.
Is this a good idea? Is it a stupid idea? Would it work? Why? Why not? Has it already been done? Let us know what you think.
I’m really hoping we can call it the Muzilla project. Maybe someone else should name it.
Go to Pop!Tech and listen/watch the Saturday night session on the Rocket Network — there ais some discussion there of this sort of thing.
That would certainly make it easier and cleaner to remove vocals for Karaoke. “:^) Have you seen this? http://www.sseyo.com/news/pr310898.html
I’d guess the primary question/objection might boil down to the art. It’s kind of like saying “I’d like my Picasso on lots of plastic sheets so I can peel back or remove certain layers.” It’s the whole, content and mix, that makes the art.
Remember mod files? They were kind of like this, in that you could jimmy with the samples and sequence.
I’ve wanted this for movie DVDs, especially when you watch something that has been mixed horribly or has music tracks from an era we’d rather not relive. Ability to influence the mix is a first step, but the UI is a challeng.
While, it is the whole or context that makes Piccasso’s art but that does not mean he cannot consentually contribute to a DYI version of art. The most commonly heard Lenny Gallant recording on PEI, after all, is “Dalziel’s Auto Body”.
So are you suggesting there would be folders of “Bo Diddley” beat files, “snappy button accordian tune” files, “Bono pretending he is Christ with a mike” files, etc. and then some app that we can whip up one’s own music with these musicial lego pieces?
[By the way, I think Peter should win an award for posting from Thailand while on a family vacation.]
Jerry,
I’m not really thinking of tweaking The Edge’s guitar lines because they’re ‘too loud’ or something like that. I’m thinking more of a collaborative creative process. For example, I’m a musician and I have a few people who I’m interested in working/recording with remotely. If I’m willing to share it, why not have anyone interested, rather than just a few close friends.
Free the music, man!
and the award goes to… Peter
As a hobbyist musician (albeit one who hasn’t plugged in his synths for about 5 years), I think it’s a great idea. I’ve wondered a few times whether there would be a workable way to send MIDI over the internet in real time to enable networked jam sessions, but this would be even cooler, since I’m more of a composer than a player.
If I could download an open-source song, remove an annoying guitar track, add my own piano track… or just scoop a drum track into a completely different song… that would be very cool.
Forgot to mention… I’d much rather see it in a form like MIDI, rather than MP3. If you’re going to break the music down into it’s parts, might as well go all the way and make the notes and instruments editable.
I think the idea was to somewhat avoid MIDI other than for skeletons and sketches. For example, somebody could post some chord changes, a few licks (maybe in MIDI), etc. It should feel more like a bunch of people jamming/rocking out to a familiar tune. There could be a ‘thread’ off a song for like (say) a slower-tempo acoustic arrangement. But the crazy ravers could take the same sketches and make a happy hardcore version at 180bpm and then maybe from there it would branch off too. Imagine a tree with a tune on top that slowly slices down into little chunks. I know MIDI has come a long way, and with proper tone generation it can sound good. But the project shouldn’t just be for people with MIDI powers. If I played violin I could print off the chart and record myself then upload my MP3. Instead of sitting down and sequencing it. I guess it’s supposed to feel like a giant slow-motion recording studio.
If you go to Neil Finn’s site (http://www.nilfun.com; uses Flash), he has a “Soundroom.” There, you can download an odd set musical figures he’s created. He encourages fans to use the pieces to cut their own mp3s. He posts some of the finished mp3s on the site, too. Each set of musical parts sort of hangs together, but the structure and arrangement are up to you. Very cool.
Neil Finn’s site is generally very cool. Not super-informative, but creative and stocked with movie clips of his rehearsals.
Good point about violin… I’d still like to see availability of MIDI for the parts that it makes sense for, since then I could change the instruments, but it would also be good to have mp3 audio tracks in the mix too.
Is this, then, like a communal Brian Eno loop tape experiment?
you say Earle.
Windom: I had no idea we were clanny
I’m gonna go out on a limb here and assume that behind Windom Earle’s hip ambiguity was a statement something like this: “I do this already. See my site for details.”
Just a guess.
That’s the trail I saw immediately before me – does that mean I am cool like aka W.E.?
AL: No,. The cool kids do their own thing at recess.
…excellent…then I shall be cool by being me…
The particular technologies involved are less important than the idea itself. Take open-source software for example. It isn’t an entity or system. Rather, it is an idea common to its participants.
While some kind of central repository for music would probably help give focus to a movement like this, there’s nothing stopping people from sharing their music in the meantime. At first, (and possibly permanently) most sharing will take place between small groups of individuals who share format and style.
or maybe someone else, not coolbreeze, saying the same thing.
i usually put my email and web address.
😉
I share your pain…
you guys should be looking into MOD files. two of the most modern MOD formats are XM and IT (both named for their music trackers, or authoring software). i’m not sure where to find any of them since the hornet archive (www.hornet.org) went down. certainly you could use the file format and write your own software. additionally, some effort has already gone into free music for people.
RE: The Open Music Project
I know it has been done before (nothing’s really original)and I think I know why it ground to a hault. Problem was as with all music (John Lennon used to say “when he started to write music he would copy something he liked, trouble was he wasn’t very good at copying”, this was during a conversation in a NY bar with a reporter) is that when things start to get good, musicians, record producers, record companies say hey that bit was really my idea and I own the copyright and things start to get nasty and the whole project gets binned. I think that Eno did some work in this area too, although he finally started creating programs of music which you can buy on a chip..which would re-write it’s self, so that when you played the track it would never sound the same the first time you played it, or the second, or third etc.
Also and more boringly there are many practical reasons why this type of project will never really work, and the finnished or un-finished results will just sound crap.
Still its a nice idea 🙂