mutopia

http://www.mutopiaproject.org

I just stumbled upon this site called Mutopia Project. Judging by the name, it seems to be about the construction of a utopia for mutants. Or maybe that's just me. But instead my guess is that's its Music Utopia... cleveeer. But it is a really cool project, its like the Project Gutenberg of the sheet music world.

All of those famous dead white men that composed all that music that we are all supposed to know... well, they are long dead, that means their music is out of copyright and very safely in the public domain. That doesn't mean you can scan some book of sheet music from one of those dead white men and distribute it freely because that publisher has a copyright on that book. These guys have made sure that they started with sufficiently old enough copies so that they really are in the public domain.

Now seeing that an Austrian university is a major contributor, there will be lots of music from dead, white Germanic men. But there might be a lot of Welsh music too, since the official project languages are: English, Deutsch, Français, and Cymraeg.

Let's hope the music of lots of other people get added to this too.

Link Roundup

Here is a gigantic link dump, can you tell that I'm cleaning out my RSS feed reader?



Record player made of paper

New Barenaked Ladies single as free, remixable multitracks

Coalition of Canadian Art Professionals Releases Open Letter on Copyright

Mathematical Proofs Set to Music

Roomba hacked into slightly cruddy musical instrument

Orphan works bill introduced: could give old creativity a new life

Historical Sounds in MP3 Format

Super-cool Fairlight CMI video on YouTube... mmm... old skool text mode step sequencer.

Negativland on copyfight -- video

Copyfighting Canadian musicians talk about Parliament meetings

Byrne/Eno's "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts" -- remix it yourself!

Canada's New Democratic Party embraces copyfighting musicians

Brazil's digital rights/open source -- MP3 of panel discussion

Freaknomics on Jane Siberry's pay-what-you-want music store

MP3 of flexidisc advertising old British holiday campst

The Clash on Fridays, 1980

Classic multi-ending MAD flexidisc MP3s

Free MP3: 1961 record of computer speaking and singing

Glitchdesk - couture circuit bending

Famous Sounds - Impressive catalog of famous samples and sound sources. (from the witness exchange)

Nerdcore artists to release nerd-rap compilation disc

Toy Record Cutter

PTR aint dead, we're just mad busy. I got married and moved... Jacob also moved. The others? They are just lazy bastards. Anyhow, check this out:



Tomy Vinyl Recorder

The enclosed records are made of simple thick plastic foil (red transparent), so you can cut them for one time with the special heavy recorder-needle. You can see the blue arm with two needles. The inner needles "directs" the second cutting needle on a special "track wheel" (the white piece in the centre of that machine.

I think it was made for super-rich japanese kids, but the market wasn't ready for this expensive toy. It seems that Tomy hadn't produced very much, because this is one of the rarest japanese toys. So this is just another case of an unbelievable concept which was ignored by mankind! Million thanks to my friend Hiromichi from Tokyo!!!

As the box shows, this machine is pure fun!!!

You were even able to cut postcards (enclosed cards show cute cats & dogs)!!!

i&iTunes

This is exactly the software I have been waiting for:

CUPERTINO, California-July 3, 2006-Apple today announced the latest version of its revolutionary iTunes, aimed squarely at the international reggae community.

"I-man bring the word sound and powa outernationally," said Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO. "Who feels it knows it."

I'm especially pleased with these features:

Rock Journalist filter - will only play songs by Bob Marley, and those which have been covered by bands such as The Clash and Blondie.

White Purist filter - Will only play Jamaican music which is at least 15 years old.

Greensleeves/Riddim Driven filter - Allows you to play 16,000 vocal cuts of the same riddim, at least 3 of which will be worth listening to more than once.

R.I.P. Syd Barrett

Syd Barrett, founder of Pink Floyd, dies

Go ahead, deny the genious of these lyrics:

I've got a bike, you can ride it if you like
It's got a basket, a bell that rings and things to make it look good
I'd give it to you if I could, but I borrowed it

You're the kind of girl that fits in with my world
I'll give you anything, everything if you want things

I've got a cloak, it's a bit of a joke
There's a tear up the front, it's red and black, I've had it for months
If you think it could look good, then I guess it should

You're the kind of girl that fits in with my world
I'll give you anything, everything if you want things

I know a mouse, and he hasn't got a house
I don't know why, I call him Gerald
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse

You're the kind of girl that fits in with my world
I'll give you anything, ev'rything if you want things

I've got a clan of gingerbread men
Here a man, there a man, lots of gingerbread, man
Take a couple if you wish, they're on the dish

You're the kind of girl that fits in with my world
I'll give you anything, ev'rything if you want things
I know a room of musical tunes
Some rhyme, some ching, most of them are clockwork
Let's go in through the other room and make them work