

Museopen to set classical music "free" - sp332
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/09/musopen-raising-40000-to-set-classical-music-free.ars

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Jun8
This is a FANTASTIC idea! The article notes that some opposition to the idea,
I can't see how anyone can defend any point against this. The music is out of
copyright, orchestras get more work, and the sound of each orchestra is unique
enough so that different orchestras can still sell CDs of the same piece.

OK, this is it. This'll be the first Kickstart project I will donate.

~~~
orblivion
No, I think orchestras will get less work. I'm still in favor of this, but
let's not kid ourselves. This is obsoleting recorded classical music (unless
you care for a specific orchestra).

EDIT: I just noticed that you mentioned the bit about orchestras sounding
unique. Well, maybe I'm not that into classical music, but this would probably
satisfy me to a large extent.

~~~
jerf
To the extent that that is a problem, it is a past-tense problem. It has
already happened. This won't add to the existing problem in any significant
manner.

The _real_ problem is that we don't need enough orchestras to actually sustain
orchestras as an industry anymore, and the attempts to get around this fact
are based in emotion, not fact or economics. I do not celebrate this, in fact
I have the same emotional reaction many people do, but nevertheless I see it
clearly: Classical music is not economically viable. We might as well record
what we can while the orchestras still exist; at least the recordings will
sound as good in 100 years as they do today.

~~~
haberman
> The real problem is that we don't need enough orchestras to actually sustain
> orchestras as an industry anymore

I don't understand how you reach this conclusion. Orchestras exist primarily
for their live performances, and the halls where they perform seat just as
many people as they always have.

Classical music is alive and well, from what I can see -- what makes you think
differently?

~~~
jerf
A series of articles like this over the years:
<http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/25/arts/music/25ravi.html>

If that is inaccurate reporting, then I plead being fed bad data.

The other problem is that market behaviors are typically nonlinear. If you cut
the demand down by 50%, that doesn't necessarily mean that you get 50% less
output. If the going price based on the supply and demand curves sinks below
the cost of production for some of the players, production can drop
dramatically, not just linearly proportionally. Unless something drastic
changes in the demand trends I don't see how this fate will be escaped.

~~~
hugh3
I have no idea what the precise financial situations of the world's orchestras
are. But I do know that many of them are perpetually crying poor _but_ never
actually closing their doors. I can't think of any major orchestra which has
ever actually had to shut down due to a lack of money coming in.

New recordings must be, I imagine, a rapidly-dissolving revenue stream anyway.
Any piece which is actually popular among buyers already has a number of
"definitive" recordings which it would be difficult to top, and anything which
isn't already the subject of a zillion recordings will probably never sell
much anyway.

~~~
MartinCron
Many orchestras are supported by donations from wealthy benefactors, so
"crying poor" is a core part of their (generally non-profit) business.

------
haberman
I'm a semi-professional classical musician, and while I think this is an
interesting idea I think it's important to know what this is and what it is
not.

This is a great way to be able to hear a performance of a recognizable melody.
It serves the same purpose that sound clips in an encyclopedia serve: it lets
you hear an example of the piece. And if you're creating a commercial where
you want the audience to hear a piece they recognize, this will work just
fine.

But this isn't something that would ever be taken seriously by real musicians,
at least in its current form. Sure, there might be some legitimately good
performances in there (especially if you're hiring the London Symphony
Orchestra). But a lot of it is clearly quite amateur -- like the recording I
found of Bach's First Cello Suite was performed on a piano! -- and no one
wants to wade through a bunch of low-quality stuff to find the good stuff. And
the people who are good don't want to be associated with the low-quality
stuff.

Musicians fill their record libraries with names they recognize, based on
other good work that artist or ensemble has done. There is such a big
variation between the best recordings and the worst recordings that it's
always a better bet to get recordings of names you know.

~~~
hyperbovine
I don't think it's quite so drastic as you make it sound. In the original post
he makes says the choice is between blowing the whole budget to hire a world-
class symphony to record one piece, or contracting with a lesser-known
organization (he suggests in Eastern Europe) to record a number of different
symphonies. Either way we are talking about serious, dedicated musicians
performing real music. I have attended concerts by some of the big names--LSO,
LA Phil, San Francisco Symphony, Berliner Philharmoniker--as well as by many
lesser-known ensembles. The difference in quality would be lost on 95% of the
listening audience. As a classical musician it might be obvious to you, a
little less so to me as a mere fan, but to most people it will just sound like
professionally-recorded classical music. Certainly light-years ahead of what's
out there today.

~~~
haberman
I don't disagree with anything you have said. My main point is that having
very amateur work mixed with serious work means serious musicians will not
trust it as a name. And that's fine -- it sounds like the founder understands
this.

~~~
cturner
Abssolutely the largest challenge is this: accumulating a critical mass of
content to bootstrap a change of mentality amongst leading musicians, who tend
to be an extremely conservative community.

I tried to do something involving this as a startup four years ago, and
content was far and away the hardest challenge. (The model involved giving
away content, but selling torrent-seeds when no-one was offering content.
Essentially the profit model was based around marking-up bandwidth, and using
out-of-copyright music as the vehicle for it).

I spoke to lots of musicians during the course of that project, and live with
musicians now. My pitch is that they should get themselves well known on the
internet, and then charge large prices for their concerts and for teaching
fees.

However, I've found all the musos I've spoken to over the last five years to
be strongly addicted to (1) the model of producing and selling some sort of
physical recording, and (2) the idea that they could one day make huge money
from selling recordings, despite all the evidence pointing to what a limited
future that model has. Even many amateur choristers puff themselves up with an
idea that the content they produce is precious and valuable in a market
(somewhere), and must therefore be protected from distribution on the internet
where anyone could download it for free. (Oh the horror!!)

One contact (a well regarded instrumentalist) has only recently begun to
upload content to youtube for promotional reasons. It has taken years for him
to adjust to the idea that this might be a good idea. He was surprised to
learn that he his name is becoming synonymous with a particular composer he
performs, and adjusting to the idea that this might be a good thing,
particularly when he's trying to get people along to his concerts.

Once the content is available and batched it won't be difficult to place a
social media layer on top of it to give ordering, tag, recommendations, etc.
The content is the key. I agree that quality is important, but once there's a
critical mass, musicians will change their mindset and start to compete to get
the best ratings on the internet.

We'll find that the top musicians on the websites will achieve a kind of
celebrity and be in high demand for tours. This will be extremely good for
"classical" music which has been decadent and moribund for decades.

------
GavinB
Note that they already have a lot of music available:
<http://www.musopen.com/music.php>

You can even listen to their radio:
<http://www.musopen.com/music_overview.php>

~~~
philh
Since the founder is reading this thread, I'll ask here: why do you require
people to log in before downloading anything?

~~~
magic5227
Because too many have abused the site with bots and automated scripts. It has
literally taken down the site more times than I care to remember.

We also have to keep track of things like who is uploading what for DMCA
protection.

------
magic5227
We'd also love your vote:<http://www.refresheverything.com/musopen>

Or here for a daily reminder to vote:
[https://spreadsheets1.google.com/viewform?hl=en&formkey=...](https://spreadsheets1.google.com/viewform?hl=en&formkey=dGN4UEZBMUE2V0NZX2JPa0M4X2tlMGc6MQ#gid=0)

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gt384u
As an amateur violinist, I'm more excited by the access to sheet music
provided by this project. I bookmarked the sheet music page with a mind to
dust off my violin when I get home from work tonight.

~~~
hnote
I wonder what is the intersection with the Petrucci Library <http://imslp.org>
\- do they have scores that IMSLP doesn't?

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edanm
This quote from the article seems especially promising: "[A]n open-source
music theory textbook is in the work, for instance." Would love to read that
when it's made.

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icco
I could swear this was on Hn awhile ago, but here is the EFF's take on the
matter. [http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/08/musopen-wants-give-
clas...](http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/08/musopen-wants-give-classical-
music-public-domain)

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eggoa
I'm in favor of enriching the public domain and this looks like a great
project.

Unfortunately, free to use means free to abuse. I cringe whenever I hear
Beethoven's Ode to Joy in a TV commercial. (What does it mean when it turns up
in a commercial for "Big Momma's House"? Was it put there out of irony?)

~~~
leviathant
Most of the classical music I know came from use in video games and cartoons -
perhaps not as boorish and uncivil as TV commercials for Big Momma's House,
but certainly not the concert hall either.

Nonetheless, I did develop an appreciation for the music, and as I grew older,
was pleasantly surprised to learn more about it, and now, well, I'm married to
a composer, and have gone to plenty of concerts, and will go to many, many
more.

I'd much rather this stuff be available for use - and abuse - than for it to
not be available. That's why I backed this project with $50. It's not a huge
contribution, but for as much as I complain about copyright warehousing and
the like, I might as well put my money where my mouth is.

------
tjr
Wow, I'm impressed that it would only cost $11,000 to record multiple full-
orchestra symphonies.

~~~
magic5227
Its per hour, and since they know this music so well, we're going to record it
live.

They play Beethoven symphonies every year at least 1-2 times

~~~
hugh3
The economics still don't seem to work out. Even with a modest-sized 40-person
orchestra (and overlooking the massed choir for Beethoven's Ninth) that's only
$275 for what must be at least several days' work. Are "world-reknowned"
orchestras really that hard up for cash?

Heck, if I can get a full orchestra to play me a symphony for a thousand bucks
then I might just do it for fun.

~~~
tjr
I found this web page:

<http://www.moscow-orchestra.com/rates.html>

The parent article here implies they will be recording, e.g., _all_ of
Beethoven's symphonies, etc. Off the top of my head, this project sounds like
at least a week's work, even assuming the players know the music well.

40 players + 5 miscellaneous (conductor, recording engineer, whatever), say,
45 people for a week at $11,000 comes out to around $6/hour. I'm not saying
the guy is lying about it, I'm just amazed at how inexpensive this appears to
be. Even double that rate, or triple it... that's some pretty awesome work you
can get done for that amount of money.

~~~
magic5227
Im not sure I follow your math, the rates on that page show the cost. Assume
its $20-30 an hour 45 people at $30 an hour is $1350, $5400 for 4. I'm having
them play live so they can read through a symphony in half an hour
potentially, depending on which one.

~~~
tjr
Beethoven: 9 symphonies... Brahms: 4 symphonies... Sibelius: 7 symphonies...
Tchaikovsky: 6 symphonies. That's 26 altogether. I've never recorded an
orchestra; based on session musicians I've worked with, I would expect the
recording sessions to last longer than the compositions in question, and I was
estimating at an hour per symphony in the first place, giving the figure of
about a week's worth of recording time (~40 hours).

But as I said, I've never recorded an orchestra before; my guesstimates may
well be skewed. Even so, at the numbers you are quoting, that's quite a bit
lower than I would have guessed earlier today. :-)

~~~
hugh3
Maybe you could save money by getting 'em to play the symphonies four times
faster than usual, then slow 'em down digitally!

------
aidenn0
I'm a little surprised that the big-name orchestras don't want royalties

~~~
magic5227
They do, they charge accordingly to remove them

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moultano
They should mic each instrument individually, so that in the future you can
recreate the experience of sitting anywhere in the concert hall.

~~~
Kadin
Close-micing (which is the term of art for what you're describing) would
potentially be interesting in terms of letting people remix the recording, but
it wouldn't "let you recreate the experience of sitting anywhere in the
concert hall."

Recordings made from close-miced instruments sound very "dry". That is,
there's little to no 'room tone' to give you a sense of space or place. I've
listened to recordings like that, and it sounds like you're having the
instrument wired directly into your brain. In some cases that might be what
you want -- a lot of pop music (virtually all) is recorded that way.

I prefer my classical music recorded "wet", on an X/Y or ORTF pair setup. This
is basically where you take two identical microphones and set them up down in
the seating area of the concert hall, right in the acoustic sweet spot of the
room. Done well, and played back on a good set of speakers, you can hear the
placement of various instruments across the stage. (Another fun technique is
binaural recording, which is designed for playback on headphones. It is not
very popular right now, though.)

There are some techniques to make a "dry" recording "wet," by basically faking
the room tone, but they're, well, fake. Tossing in a little reverb and messing
with the EQ is never going to give you the same effect as the natural
acoustics of a concert space.

A lot of modern recordings have a mix; they'll use some mics up on the stage
(relatively dry), some down in the audience area, and others on key
instruments to give the engineer flexibility later on. But a lot of really
excellent classic recordings from the 50s and 60s were done with nothing but
two condenser mics.

What you could probably do, if you really wanted, would be to do some sort of
multichannel recording using a big microphone array ... if you did it right,
with the right playback equipment, that might give you the ability to "move
around" inside the listening space. I'm not sure if it would really be any
easier than just doing multiple X/Y-pair recordings from different parts of
the concert hall, though.

~~~
moultano
>There are some techniques to make a "dry" recording "wet," by basically
faking the room tone, but they're, well, fake. Tossing in a little reverb and
messing with the EQ is never going to give you the same effect as the natural
acoustics of a concert space.

I disagree with this. It's certainly true of most "reverb" plugins, but it's
possible to measure the frequency response curves of famous concert halls and
exactly recreate the effect of sitting there, down to the details of how your
head shapes the sound coming from different directions. It just comes down to
how accurately you can measure the impulse response function. The physics
implies that this is basically perfect, modulo the quality of our recording
gear.

To do this, you set up microphones as your "ears" where you want it to sound
like the person is sitting, and then go on stage and do one of two things.
Either fire a blank from a gun, or play a tone sweep. (The latter is more
common these days.) From the recording of the way the sounds bounce around the
room, you can generalize all of the linear behavior of the reverberation
(which is all you are interested in anyways.)

From this you get a convolution kernel, then just convolve that with your dry
signal.

You can actually get something that sounds identical to a binaural recording
out of this.

------
danbmil99
Let's do this for pop music.

------
alnayyir
The founder mass emailed a bunch of people whose emails he scraped from
various popular blogs and HN hackers lists looking for a co-founder and
started a reply-all mess.

Didn't even have the decency to BCC.

Pretty much shitcanned in my book for doing something so spammy and rude.

~~~
magic5227
I used the co-founder list...to request a co-founder, I dont know what you
mean by various blogs, its in a google doc which you were apparently listed
in. Apologies if it was unwanted but please then remove your name from it.

I emailed most of the list as I am not looking for a specific person, anyone
that is interested in helping. Its not like there are attributes specifically
mentioned that would help me narrow for "someone interested in classical
music".

However, it obviously wont happen again :)

~~~
proexploit
It's intended to provide people information so they might find a suitable co-
founder based on skills wanted, common interests etc. It's a great tool to
use. The issue is with both emailing everyone on the list and with putting
everyone in the TO instead of BCC.

I've got about tons of emails about this all day which are people saying
"please remove me". I wouldn't be a fit for your work anyways, but even if I
was, I would have changed my mind by now.

~~~
magic5227
You're right, not BCC'ing was a mistake.

------
michaelhalligan
These guys spammed me (and another hundred or so HN members) this morning in a
very annoying way.

~~~
magic5227
Addressed above and apologies Michael

