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I realize that me saying this might be too early, but I would like some feedback on this idea.

I was today re-reading the Canadian Copyright Act, and hit upon the recording section (which I haven't read before since it's not relevent to IMSLP), and to my surprise, the term is not Life+50, but Performance/Recording+50. This means that all recordings made (and released) before 1956 is in the public domain in Canada.

Now I've always liked the idea of a project parallel to IMSLP that indexes recordings, but have never thought it feasible, until now.

Anyone have any comments/ideas on this?

I think it's nice to be able to hear the piece while looking at the score and to have both easily and freely accessible would be great. I'd be careful however. I think IMSLP is rapidly becoming THE place for free/public domain music scores on the internet. I don't want it to lose it's focus or to get into more legal trouble than it can handle. The wiki is a double edged sword: everybody can add content and make improvements, but they can also add content that may not be desireable like non-PD scores and audio files. This problem exists now to some extent, but I think it would be much more difficult to asses whether or not an audio file is PD. More control may be necessary to ensure the legality of the archive. Those are just some of my thoughts on the subject. I tend to be overly cautious at times though.

That's exactly one of the things that I was considering. Another IMSLP contributor also e-mailed me about this, and notified me about karadar.it, which already has a similar function.

It doesn't really matter that much... it was just some idle musings I had one sunny autumn day

I've just taken a look at karadar.it and it's a horrible site. Ads on every click and it's too difficult to download anything IMO.

Horndude is right. When I first discovered the IMSLP somebody had already proposed such a project in connection with the Karadar/CoCoA library.

My opinion is that Karadar offers a good range of MIDI files which are helpful for quick reference perhaps to identify a piece of music if I am uncertain, and also links to CoCoA - Compilation Compiler Advisor - which seems to have been set up originally as an MP3 library of old recordings hosted by the University of Trento, with a facility to recommend recordings that might be of interest, based on user selections.

The sad thing is that CoCoA is even less attractive, and rather unreliable as a download source, and although a redesign has been in progress for more than a year now, progress seems to be painfully slow. The impression I have formed is that it is very much a "back burner" project.

My own feeling is that the IMSLP is a valuable resource precisely because its aims are clearly defined. I would welcome a better source of recordings than Karadar/CoCoA but I think that it should be a separate entity from the IMSLP.

There is also the Classical Music Archives...http://classicalarchives.com which has free midi files (limited to five downloads per day, unless one is a subscriber) and free streams (also limited). Suscribers can download unlimited files, including the MP3's!
I find this site to be particularly useful!

've just taken a look at karadar.it and it's a horrible site. Ads on every click and it's too difficult to download anything IMO.

QFT, it is very difficult to download anything for CoCoa.

Hi all,

My propasal in short:
i want to connect my audio site with your sheet music site to give a complete overview of classical music.

The details:

One and a half year ago I tried to setup a free classical music site with sheet music and audio. I studied musicology and always missed a quick acces to important compositions. The development went slowly and stopped when I became the publisher of a Dutch classical music magazine (for you who read dutch: www.mensenmelodie.nl).

Now I want to go further with my idea but saw you guys already are doing a great job collecting sheet music. So that is one worry less. I still want to go further with my idea, but the sheet music is completely covered by you, so i want to focus on free audio.

Now this works a bit different than the sheet music. It is a lot harder to get this music into the public domain. What i figured out was i had to get permission by performers to use there music. (and only from composers who are already in the public domain). I do not use the public domain for the recordings, but an other Creative Commons license. You simply have to address a lot of musicians and some of them will join you. It is a lot more common in the popmusic scene and it takes a while to convince musicians, but it works.

Technically a wiki works out fine for a sheet music site. (i turned mine into a wiki as well), but for audio it is not the best system. So i figured out two systems running seperatly and refferring to each other. I have dropped the whole sheet music part of my site now and would like to refer to your site at my recordings. I think it will be usefull if you also would like to refer to my site for the sheet music i have a recording of.

I am building my site again from the ground up, but you can have a preview where i put one link to your site at the BWV 591 composition.

http://www.musicassistant.org/members/1/

How we should technically link to each other is an other question which we can discuss later. First I would like to know what you think of my idea.


Kind regards,

Jurgen

The Cocoa site is under construction. Hopefully when it is up again it will be more user friendly.

It has been under construction for... well... since I found the place about three or four years ago.

Oh no. That would probably mean the site reconstruction is temporary on hold, or worse, permanently halted. If it is the latter, it's a shame as the site had some good recordings which are PD.

I agree, I managed after about 40 tries to get some good recordings.

That's interesting. Can I please ask, your attempt to get the recordings after some 40 tries is before or after the site when down for construction (or maybe in this case permanent shutdown)?

I use this for music recordings:

http://www.classiccat.net/

Is that the sort of thing you're thinking of setting up?

That's interesting. Can I please ask, your attempt to get the recordings after some 40 tries is before or after the site when down for construction (or maybe in this case permanent shutdown)?

Well... they did have "under construction" up when I did it. But I'm sure that part wasn't "constructed" yet.

I use this for music recordings:

http://www.classiccat.net/

Is that the sort of thing you're thinking of setting up?

We were thinking more like the wiki we use for IMSLP.